Jaime
Who is Jaime and what has she been up to?
For years Jaime has been working in community development and social justice.
Since she left the UK in 2001 with a first class honours degree in Drama (yes that’s a proper degree) she’s been working to make the world a better place. At 14 she declared to the world (or perhaps her mirror) “I want to do drama workshops with naughty boys”. Who knows why this was the vision for her life – but at the age of 23 that’s what she was doing. Jaime specialised in working with at risk youth – assisting the kids to work out why they dropped out of school, did stuff they probably shouldn’t of and how they could work together to improve things. She learnt more than she ever taught and began to realise that life wasn’t quite as simple as she thought.
In Western Australia about 70% of the detainees in juvenile prison (where Jaime worked for 3 years) are aboriginal. Sometimes it’s a few more, sometimes a few less – but regardless it’s an appalling statistic that points to something not quite right in our society.
After years of working in prisons, on the streets and in schools Jaime realised that we needed to address the systems of our society. It didn’t matter how great she was as a faciltiator, or how great youth workers were, there would always be another young person coming through the revolving door of the detention centre.
She spent the next 6 years training in team work, management and leadership. She wanted to train in how to create the kind of world we really wanted, one that works for everyone.
From a dreaded, pierced hippy (you should see the photos) she transformed into a business woman and began working with business, ngo’s and government departments. She began leading culture change programs and working in organisational dvelopment. Executive leadership and transformational coaching became her world – for a while. She ran a company, employed a small team of staff and managed volunteers.
She worked for various folk including Woodside, Deloitte, Ramsay, State Government, NGO’s and Local Councils. She presented lectures at universities and attended conferences and seminars both nationally and overseas.
And then she attended an event which altered things dramatically. From someone committed to social justice she realised she needed to address sustainability issues as well. She realised that without a healthy planet we cannot possibly have healthy communities. She realised that the root causes of the inequity she’d experienced in jails and on the streets were also causing climate change and environmental destruction.
She created an even bigger mission for herself: to bring forth a socially just, environmentally sustainable and fulfilling world.
She began working with Aboriginal Leaders to see the interconnection between land and community and worked in communities locally in the South West of WA and the North of WA. Jaime began to bring the gap between the world of social justice and environmental sustainability, bringing groups and individuals together and assisting them in seeing things from a different perspective.
Several years later, having presented workshops and forums to thousands of people young and old and consulted with people from all parts of society she realised that addressing climate change and preventing the catastrophic impacts scientists were warning us of would be a full time vocation. And that brings us to this ‘It’s Up 2 Us!’
It's Up 2 Us! 