The Village Project was created to empower communities to make positive everyday choices for themselves, others and the planet. The initial planning revolved around transforming a 16 year vacant, three storey warehouse, in Summer Hill, into a green building, community hub and ethical business precinct.
We launched work on the project in early 2020 and a week later Covid-19 hit Australia and we went into lockdown. We took a step back to reevaluate and work out our next steps. We decided to forge ahead, despite being in lockdown and it was, in fact, lockdown that revealed to us what our greatest needs were. Connection, compassion, sharing and kindness became the ties that bound us together, when we couldn’t actually be together.
After the first lockdown we were keen to start connecting with the community again and then our good ol’ friend Covid returned, along with another lockdown. This delayed the opening of the building again, but also inspired new ideas, which included this digital platform and online share economy. Our dedicated team of 35+ volunteers are working towards opening the building to the community by January 2023, so watch this space!