In April 2011, ActionAid Australia launched a nationwide search for an Aussie woman to become a Hunger Busting Blogger.
The women who nominated themselves had to have a “connection to land”, and there were 41 nominations of amazing women who were passionate about fighting the root causes of poverty, and empowering rural women to fight for their rights.
A shortlist of 19 nominees was created and you can see these nominees’ videos explaining how they’d spread the word about sustainable agriculture and the role of women farmers in busting hunger around the world. Click here to check out these videos.
In the end two bloggers were chosen – Hannah Moloney and Tina McPherson. Hannah is a 27 year-old city farmer and ever-curious permaculturalist. With a post-graduate degree in Community Cultural Development, Hannah has spent the last few years teaching permaculture and small-scale organics around Australia. She is currently working with Cultivating Community in Melbourne as a Community Food Systems Officer and co-manages a number of community gardens on housing estates.
Tina is a strawberry and passionfruit farmer from Bundaberg, Queensland. The mother of four describes her passion for sustainable agriculture as her “everyday”. In her own words: “It is how I feed the children, it is my each and every work day, it is where we play as a family, it is where I interact with my staff, it is where I go to relax and reflect, it is all around me.”
Together, Tina and Hannah will travel to Tanzania for two weeks of blogger training, followed by a four day visit to Uganda to meet with a smallholder farming community ActionAid Uganda has been working with for a number of years.
When they return to Australia, Tina and Hannah will spend the next 12 months blogging about their experiences and raising awareness of sustainable agriculture and the role of women in fixing the world’s broken food system.
You can follow ActionAid on Twitter and Facebook for updates on Tina and Hannah’s adventures in Africa and their reflections over the next 12 months on what sustainable and just agriculture really means.