[00:00:03] Speaker A: Choice and Control is a podcast celebrating meaningful inclusion of people with disability in our communities, brought to you by carers Queensland, your NDIs local area coordination partner in the community.
Each episode provides a conversation space for people with disability, their families and carers to share their stories with you. We also hear from members of the wider community, local businesses and community leaders who share information, ideas and possibilities to give you more opportunity and more choice and control in your life.
Qualified horticulturalist and nursery owner Nathan Freeney has been working in the community garden sector for over 15 years and has future plans to provide increased learning and employment opportunities for people with disability.
Through his collaboration with Charis Queensland, the 32 year old coolum resident has built strong relationships with several community gardens, including Beechmere, as he works towards creating greater inclusion by sharing his lived experience.
Nathan has also started his own podcast to share the unique stories of people with disability.
I caught up with Nathan and started by asking him about his long standing involvement in community gardens and the benefits to the community.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Well, firstly, I like, I always like community guns and how they trying to include people living with disabilities. I know I'm in talks at the moment for community garden in Beechmere who has been really inclusive for people like living with a disability and making sure that they can have a front foot of the first community garden that actually cares about disability people. So that's why I'm really passionate with doing community gardens with people like Dave and they're his community members in Beech. Me really giving the opportunities to get people like myself into community gardens, that gives me love and the heart into doing more for other people like myself.
[00:02:11] Speaker C: When you go to a community garden and you do offer your advice, what sort of things would you advise on?
[00:02:17] Speaker A: What would you say?
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Well, firstly, I normally will say that how we can include people that are living with a disability into the community guards and making sure that the community gardens up to standard. So if I'm in the wheelchair that I don't get stuck in a wheelchair on the ground. Like if I run, walk in my wheelchair and land in this dirt or something, all I'm gonna do is get stuck in it basically. So telling them basically, okay, how can I make it's safer so people in wheelchairs or walkers can come through and community gardens and have fun and do the same thing with it, getting stuck in the mud.
[00:02:53] Speaker C: What about people with more invisible disabilities?
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Well, trying to get senses of gardens century gardens involved in their communities gardens is what hopefully is driving me to keep doing it because one sense of gut century gardens are the most fantastic things. You can touch, feel, smell and do most of everything that you possibly can in the community garden. So if we can get that included into community gardens, that's the biggest passion I would like to do.
[00:03:25] Speaker C: Tell me more about sensory gardens. What's involved there?
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Well, century gardens is more involved. If. If you have quite a bit of acres, basically acre it can put in, you can put it in any size as possible, but the more you have, more you can add into it. It's like a putting it jitsu puzzle in together and see if it fits.
And then trying to do that, and it's more like trying to have boards there. You can fill with the little dots there. You can put your hands across. You can feel first national plants, the texture on the back, leave vines and thief, or basically everything on the tree. You can feel it and people explain it, what that. What that is. Or you have boards there that say what it is, how it feels, what's it smell like, and stuff like that. So it does it for you. Benefits for everybody. Like, I love scented gardens because you can smell the aroma the plants are giving out as well.
[00:04:21] Speaker C: It sounds like a very positive experience, too.
[00:04:24] Speaker B: Yeah, well, that's the thing is it's really good for people that are physical, emotional, unable or can't see disabilities, can actually get into community guns. I know that's what I've been passionate and a lot of care is Queensland workers at the moment know, okay, Nathan's really passionate of doing it. How can we change that so we can include more people like Nathan in their community guns or people that are, like, physically blind, not able to move, how can we get them included into community gardens?
Hence that's why you guys have been recommending me a few community guards to get that involved, inclusive in there.
[00:05:09] Speaker C: Why are you trying to change people's views? What's your motivation?
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Well, the thing is, when I've been starting through my career in horticulture, I've seen a lot of people, not including people living in disabilities, not in community guards, but more in a work workplace environment.
I've seen and been told throughout going out west, few charities, events that I've been working with, that inclusive things out there, employees, employers, not actually understanding disability people. And I say disability because, yes, we have a disability, but thing is, the disability doesn't stop you doing what you wanting to do in your life, that you people can rave on about your life. I've got a disability. Oh, that's gonna stop me. I said, no, it doesn't. It's just this title, overhead, let's get rid of it and put you can do it. Not with that. You cannot do it in it.
So with my career with 14, I see 15 years now, 15 years in horticulture. I've seen the up and up and downs, the high and lows. What else can you say? Basically the rocky road through horticulture industries that when someone sees someone with a Down syndrome, people say, don't have to put someone else, another employee with him, so. Or her second. Saves me double handling my workload when that's not the truth. When you can have their sport workers coming involved and they can actually help you, save you coughing up more money for another person. You can actually have a sport worker there, have horticultural permaculture needs that can know what needs to be done. You tell the sport work, the sport worker tells the client that you have on your books kind of thing.
[00:07:01] Speaker D: Carers Queensland is growing inclusion awareness and opportunities for people with disability. And we're better to grow things than a garden. We're working with community gardens to improve accessibility and make sure people of all abilities can get their hands dirty. Were starting conversations about what the community wants and needs and how we can work together to give everyone a place to put down roots and bloom.
Find out more, get in touch or look for events and opportunities coming up near you. Visit our
[email protected], dot au or call our inquiries line on 1399 636.
[00:07:44] Speaker A: Nathan has also been working with registered training providers, building more accessible education and employment pathways in horticulture for people with disability.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Well, that space has been going up and it goes down and up and down. It's like a high graph, basically. It goes full and it goes half empty. It's. It's like, basically people say it's a cup of water. It can go, you can fill it up to the top and it goes over flows or you can have a cup that's half full. I always like, as people know, I like to do my cup always fall because my experience in those programs I'm trying to start, I always want the benefits of getting them into the best employment possible after they finish the Cert three in horticulture. I'm in a process at the moment. So I did go through take Queensland down to Brisbane. That didn't work because the cost of that course, that didn't happen. So.
And a lot of red tape as well.
So then after that, I'm starting a new one up in Nambour Tafe that is hopefully will be free. It definitely will be free. It'll be get government scheme they have at the moment get back to work free scheme. Trying to think so I'm trying to get that through to namble. Really keen to do it and they're happy to go with that course.
All I need at the moment is the numbers to say this. Let's go ahead and let's start this course next year. I already have the teacher involved that is really keen to do it. Sorry to do it, but just have to get the numbers first for the course.
[00:09:28] Speaker C: And what will your role be? Will you be helping deliver the course, Nathan?
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Well, I'm not qualified in that sector at the moment. I'm halfway qualified in that sector, but as a tutor, did two calls on that unit, but as it's too much for my learning disability, I pulled out of that and decided to do the tutoring course. Did that, but with that course, I just want to help people on the back end of things. So if they have learning disabilities or need extra time or their sport workers come to me say, Joey blog deciding to basically put needs more extra time so then we can say, okay, Joey blog needs extra three weeks on top.
The good thing about this course I'm trying to do is make it verbally. So no one physically trying to put everything onto paper, they can verbally say face to face or it's video call or like on video. So all I do is talk to the teacher about or me or whoever, and that will be uploaded to Kinect.
I say that all I do is verbally do it because it's a lot easier to verbally do it than write it on a piece of paper when you see a hundred thousand words at one go at one time.
[00:10:44] Speaker C: So that's one of the barriers that you've been able to remove so more people can be involved. Were there any other barriers with the course that you had to look at?
[00:10:53] Speaker B: Oh, well, we trying to make sure that that course is, will get the benefit of everyone that has living with a disability can get the benefit out of that course. It's a very full on course. It's a set three in horticulture and it's a definitely full on course because I did personally and it was full on a lot of paperwork, identifying plants, identifying weeds, basically identifying basically 150 weeds, plants, and so knowing what specific culture they coming through that the name behind it and stuff like that. So that's what I'm trying to do with my course, is trying to make it easy as possible for them to learn the way they want to learn. If they take. I know the course is only for six months, but hopefully I can twist it around trying to make it a twelve months course if we can do it. But it's all politics involved there, so I try to make it better for them to learn.
[00:11:51] Speaker C: You mentioned before about employment outcomes as well. So will you be guiding the students through the course and then also helping them find employment in horticulture?
[00:12:01] Speaker B: Well, that's the plan, so. Touch wood. I'm touching wood right now. Well, that's the biggest plan that I'm trying to do after they do the Cert three. So the course I'm doing with beats me. Community garden, that workshop down there, I'm trying to get employee employers on board. So. So example, Cert two. And horticulture has turf management, uh, turf, uh, mods on it, basically. So I'm trying to get a turf farm involved so they come on board. So then say me teaching them at a community gun, I can then take it to that turf farm and then an employer can teach them all these skills they have and hopefully that employees like, I want to have him. All these guys in this course, when I've done the 33, please let me know. I'll put them straight on kind of feeling. So that's what I'm trying to do with my workshops as well as my program. So I. I mean, as everyone knows, I'm really in that sector, at disability sector, at mom, trying to change that forte around. Okay, how can we make disability services involved? So they, Joey blog and Timmy can, or Tiffany, for example, can get the best benefits out of these courses I'm doing to get employment straight away.
So, yeah, I'm trying to get employment employees on board at the moment so they can say, yeah, okay, after they do set three in horticulture or do workshops in beach mere, can you please let me know so then I can actually put them on my, my books and pay them straight away.
[00:13:33] Speaker C: And because you run your own nursery, don't you, Nathan?
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Yeah, well, my, I did run it up and sunny coast at the moment, but due to circumstances back in Covid, I decided it's easier to me to back it portable. Hence that's why I'm doing everything all over the shop. Because I want to make sure when I do a workshop, it's 100%, not 50% or 20%. I want to make sure it's 100%. I want to make sure that if I take my nursery off portable, what can I make it work? How can I make it work for everyone else, not myself, but more as other people so I can make workshops in beach, me work, start doing programs up in Nambour, TAFE, Sardar, Cert three up there.
I'm in talks at the moment with a people down at Springfield at the moment that Charis Queensland's been talking to me about a down there. So hopefully that can be something there as well. So that's why I said to myself, it'd be nice to make the business portable so then they have the business can benefit everyone, not it's good to benefit one people up in Coulomb. That's where it's founded. But making it portable for everyone gets the benefits of the 100% guarantee that you can get something out of this business if this works for you, not for myself. So it's basically for them, not me.
[00:15:06] Speaker E: Do you have a passion or talents to share? A micro business can be a great way for people with disability to earn income, build your confidence, be more independent and be an active part of your community care. As Queensland is supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs with our be your own boss, it's a free opportunity to find out what it means to start a micro business, whether it's a good fit for you. Connect with business mentors, learn from existing micro business owners and showcase your goods and services in the be your own boss marketplace.
Find out more, get in touch or look for events and opportunities coming up near you. Visit our
[email protected], dot au or call our inquiries line on 1399 636.
[00:15:56] Speaker C: It's incredible work that you're doing there, Nathan. You just must be so passionate about what you do to have that energy all of the time.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Oh, yes. I've been, I've been told multiple times. Have you ever stopped? I was like, if I stop one week or two weeks in a row and do nothing, basically, that would be fantastic. Actually. Um, if I stop for two weeks and don't do link, then there's 25 people with a disability go under the radar. So I'm trying to change that for take some. Yes, I'm on my computer all the time trying to change that way.
Answering emails, making sure my workshops up to, making sure that I have clients on board coming into those courses, making sure that I have all my ducks in a row for those two things, making sure those 25 people don't fall under the radar. They're actually getting the benefits of through horticulture. If it's not really horticulture, but more the horticia horticulture sector, but more whatever they the clients need, I hope that I can actually be there to help them.
[00:17:01] Speaker C: So what's your ultimate goal? What are you trying to achieve in the long run?
[00:17:06] Speaker B: Well, that's a million dollar question. So I keep saying themselves, what's the biggest goal that I've solved this five years ago? What's the biggest thing that I've achieved in this biggest goal for this company? And I come to the solution. This. This solution of this actually is if I can change 25 people's life each day on my life, when I take a brief of this earth, then I can then change. I can change. If I can. If I can change 25 people's lives, then I know what my business done. Something. If I wake up tomorrow and done nothing in my life, then what's the point of doing this business is our people know. In Kerris, Queensland, I annoy the hell out of people because I want the benefits for people that are living with a disability, but making sure that I'm on the back end of typing, typing, typing, making sure that everything's in a row that so no ducks go to the left or right. It's all in one row going straight, not sideways. Making sure that those 25 or hundred people, like we're living with down syndrome, autism, high needs of everything. Like, that's the same some types of needs. But if I can change 25 people's lives and then I can know I can wake up tomorrow with a big smile on my face, I know I'm sitting on my backside typing, typing, annoying people, trying to change people's like four text disability people, but not getting the benefits of it. Making. Making sure that that barrier is broken down. So as people look at each other and it's like this got, why is this guy got, damn. What's wrong with this person? Like, trying to change that vortex of way people think about people that are living with disability, way they look, how they feel, how they speak, what they look like. Trying to change that vortex because I'm actually, excuse the punch, um, I'm really pissed off with that way they, people think like that. And a lot of people, as everyone knows, I'm so passionate doing, as you said to trace, I said, I'm so passionate of changing it because I hate people judging us, bullying us, harassing us in the workplace and in general life, because what's the point of being doing this stuff if people keep judging us or keep kicking us like a football into a hula hoop or whatever it is or a goal and trying to hit us down the ground, trying to change that fork text, you know, does that upset you? Uh, yes, it does actually upset me because, as my mother says, me quite a bit. Yeah, she sees it quite a bit in her side of things, in commercial stuff, but more, she knows that what I'm passionate about, and yes, it annoys the hell out of me, because why? Why does people do it? That's the biggest thing. The biggest thing I keep saying to people, why you keep judging people by basically, in my nutshell, why you judge a book by its cover when the covers has not opened, the full. The book that the book has not fully opened, why you keep judging the front of the COVID when that book has not really opened and telling the whole full story about it? Because when you open the book, that can tell you 158 pages of how good this person is, hair goods. This person can be like, I love working with people with disabilities because not being disrespectful, they have more brain cells than other people in the workplace because they know, okay, they do different things. That's what I love about them. They really passion of what they want to do in their lives, they want to make friends, they want to make friendships, they want to have a good employment in there so they can actually have a better lifestyle.
[00:20:42] Speaker C: One of the benefits of being involved in the course and the gardens for people with disability, well, that's the biggest thing.
[00:20:49] Speaker B: Like Acosta said, it's. Costa made a good point of this in gardening Australia, is when you go out to garden, you smell the fresh air, you smell the. Just say basil, you can smell the mint, you can get your hands dirty in nature. And that's what everyone's missing at the moment. Why doesn't journal young youth people that have, we have this biggest crime at the moment, you, crime. Why don't they do go back to nature, get their hands dirty to nature and actually be something different? Because as a lot of people say, as a mushroom, it grows from a spore on the ground and it needs love and affection and all this kind of stuff to make it grow. And look at the mushroom, it fully grows and it dies over certain many years. That's what people need and learn. Like, if I'm a you person, what, why would I do crime and stuff when I can go and do community guns, going plants and stuff, get friendship?
I can rave on all day about this.
I can, I can. Like, if I'm a youth person at home, I would be at my backyard right now of doing hedging or doing weeding. I can do pruning. I can get my la mandala. Foley is in, into line. Cut them up.
What else can I do? Get my grevilleas and just do get back to nature. Get hands dirty back to nature. But making sure that, okay, if I can do this, how can I change other people's lives as well? So the biggest thing is out. The best thing about guarding, you can hand steady, you can make friendships, you can make. If you. If the right thing comes across, you can even make it find a partner like myself.
You never know, said the community garden last week. Worlds your oyster. You can do whatever you want to do in your life, but it's your decision to make your decisions in your life. It's not your mother or your father or your brother or your sister. It's yours.
[00:22:53] Speaker C: Absolutely. Just finally, Nathan, you are interested in podcasts and telling your story. What do you get out of sharing your story on podcast and sharing your story?
[00:23:06] Speaker B: Well, that's the thing that. Well, the biggest thing is the story behind the perfect talking on the microphone or behind the camera. So all the person that's talking to with me, like, the biggest thing is, what's this? What can we change? Like, it's making you how a sunflower grows, for example, it's the biggest thing. If a sunflower grows, what's it going to do? Start from the ground and grow up and tell the story about the sunflower, how it grows, how sunflower seeds drop in the ground and such. Another 25 sunflowers. But that's the story behind the sunflower. How can we tell that story behind the person that's talking to me? So, for example, I already have, like, I don't need to get my ducks in a row with that kind of thing. But the story behind that is, how can we change? Like for.
Excuse me. So the. One of the people that are really keen to do it is Phil Uncle Pauly, who does all the first national artwork for carers Queensland. He's a really good akafet for disability people, and he loves this first national artwork. And he's the most passionate person, biggest artist I ever seen in my heart, in my life.
Telling his story around his lifestyle, his life, how he got bullied and rash with his culture and all these stuff like that. That fundamentals don't ran that story, but telling that story, that will make people pop like a popcorn. How can we make that story pop? So people, like, say that, okay, this. This. This story can. Is. Has purpose behind it. How can we. Okay, let's go for the first one, the second one, third one. Tell the story. How can we do it? That gets to the core of their heart and make sure they say, oh, I really like that story. Actually made me cry. Like the, like australian stories, sometimes they have really good stories on their kind of stuff. Just the fundamentals around what's the story, who's behind it, what's you trying to get out of it? Basically kind of thing. And if I had the right people I was. Had the right people on my broadcast on and trying to think he's trying to. Trying to get that story across. Like that's the biggest thing what I want to do like that, bro. It's called disability matters broadcast. Try and get that across to get the matter across so people can actually get that solution across to other people and talk about it. It's all about talking, how we can change people's lives. Talking, talking. Talking can make this story work, but it, with a solution beyond it can make the story happen at the same time.
[00:25:52] Speaker C: Nathan, thank you so much for joining me today.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Thank you Tracy, thanks for having me. It's really honor to have coming on to Charis Queensland again and tell my story.
[00:26:06] Speaker A: And that was Nathan Freeney, owner of Swallowtail Nursery and producer of the Disability Matters podcast. If you'd like to know more about Nathan's work or the Carers Queensland community Gardens projects, follow the links in the episode transcript.
Thanks for joining us at Choice and Control, a Carers Queensland podcast. If you've enjoyed this podcast episode, please take a moment to leave a rating and review and share it with your community. For more information about the National Disability Insurance Scheme or Carers Queensland, contact us online at www.carersqld.com dot au or call us on 1390 9636 or head to Facebook and look for carers Queensland NDIs.
