History Matters

For my project, I have been working with Riding for the Disabled (NSW), a not-for-profit organisation that provides people of all ages and varying disabilities, with the opportunity to ride and interact with horses. When we were asked to approach a community organisation, I immediately thought of Riding for the Disabled (RDA). As a member of the equestrian community in the Southern Highlands, the work that RDA does is very close to my heart and I have attended fundraising gymkhanas to support the organisation since I was four years old. I have been working with Riding for the Disabled (NSW) in a fundraising capacity however due to confidentiality considerations, I am unable to go into more detail about the specific nature of my project. So for this blog, I thought I would include an article I wrote about Riding for the Disabled, Moss Vale. I hope that through my work, I have contributed to the well-being of the Riding for the Disabled community. This unit and more specifically this project, has broadened my perspective on the nature of history significantly. Perhaps most importantly, it has opened my eyes to the dire need for the most vulnerable members of society to have their voices heard by the broader public.
RIDING FOR THE DISABLED- A CLOSER LOOK
By Mary Bokey
Last Wednesday I had the privilege of visiting the Fitzroy Equestrian Center to meet the members of Riding for the Disabled, Moss Vale. Riding for the Disabled (RDA) is a not-for-profit organisation, which gives people of all ages, with various disabilities, the opportunity to ride and interact with horses. It is a nationwide organisation split into state and local branches, and it provides vital physical and psychological therapy for its members.
Angus and Neatie Malcolm have been involved with Riding for the Disabled for over 40 years, and their hard work and dedication has positively influenced the lives of hundreds of people in the Southern Highlands community.
I arrived at the equestrian center to find Angus and a group of volunteers catching the ponies from the paddocks and saddling them up. A mix of men and women, young and ‘slightly older’, all the volunteers were friendly, cheerful and looking forward to a fun morning of riding.

Pictured above: Regular volunteer, Narelle, waits for the riders to arrive with one of the lovely ponies at Fitzroy Equestrian Centre
After a brief group meeting, where Angus explained to the volunteers and students what they would be doing that day, the riders began to arrive. All the volunteers knew each rider by name and the genuine friendship between the riders and volunteers was evident.
I met Stephen, Louise, Sophie and Neil, who were all eager to find out who they were riding that day and get in the saddle. They were riding new horses that day, as their faithful mounts were out in the field having a well-deserved holiday.
I had the opportunity to talk for some time with Neil Macpherson about his journey with RDA Moss Vale. In 2015 Neil suffered a debilitating stroke. Sustaining severe neurological injury, doctors told him he might never walk again. Unwilling to accept this, Neil and his wife Toniann moved to the Southern Highlands, to begin a new life. Through intensive physical therapy he began to walk again and discovered a love of swimming. Then, when Neil heard about Neatie and Angus through a family friend, he decided to give riding a go, and he has never looked back. He said, “RDA has helped me to participate in a sport which is very well supervised by caring people whilst providing the highest level of safety. It has given me confidence and happiness throughout my recovery”. Physically, learning to ride has helped Neil regain his balance and muscular strength, and emotionally, the friendship and sense of community being a part of Riding for the Disabled has given him, has been invaluable.

Pictured above: Angus and the volunteers help Neil mount his horse
The sky grew ominously dark and rain started to fall, but nothing was going to put a dampener on the spirits of the volunteers or the riders. After all the riders were in the saddle, the group made their way to the indoor arena to begin their riding lesson. Each rider had one volunteer leading their horse, and another volunteer on the other side to provide additional support. They walked and trotted each way and practiced their steering by weaving through bending poles, before finishing up with a relay and a snail’s race. Sophie, who is learning to ride independently won the relay, and Louise won the snail’s race.

Pictured above: Stephen is thrilled to be back in the saddle and always brings an apple for his horse

Pictured above: Sophie is learning to ride independently
When Neil, Sophie, Stephen and Louise had finished their lesson, I made my way back to the stables, where a group of younger riders had been given pony rides around the yard. The volunteers were delighted, because Josh had been too afraid to touch horses when he first started coming to RDA, but this week, he proudly smiled for the camera as he gave Benji the pony a big cuddle.

Pictured above: Josh making friends with Benji the pony
As I drove home, I reflected on what had been a truly humbling experience, watching people of all ages and backgrounds, brought together by a shared love of horses, to form a strong and vibrant community. The work that Angus, Neatie and all the volunteers at Riding for the Disabled Moss Vale do, enriches the lives of all the riders and their families, and I urge the community to get involved by volunteering or donating to this amazing organisation.
For more information head to the Riding For the Disabled NSW website at: https://rdansw.org.au/

“We do what we do because we care. That’s the whole mission of our profession – to help people…”
– Andrew Snow, co-owner of Pittwater Pharmacy and member of the Papandrea Family
This project is the product of substantial soul-searching and a fortuitous epiphany – after several weeks of melancholy rumination upon my apparent lack of ‘belonging’, initiated by reflection upon the content of this course, I finally realised that I did have connections to a local community. This sense of attachment was discovered whilst enjoying a coffee at a café opposite a building I have known my entire life: Pittwater Pharmacy and Compounding Chemist. The pharmacy is a familiar landmark for the residents of Mona Vale village on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, the area where I spent my childhood before my parents moved back to New Zealand. Having been owned and run by the same Italian family, the Papandreas, for over forty years, the pharmacy boasts an impressively large and loyal clientele, with customers visiting from all over Sydney and even from interstate. Although I have known the Papandrea family since I was a baby, it dawned on me that I actually knew very little about their history. I decided I wanted to know more about this iconic small business and, in the process, create some sort of historical product that would convey how important and integral their work is to the community, both in the past and today. The pharmacy is far more than a business – it is a community service, providing uniquely personable and customised care to each and every one of its customers.
The role that the pharmacy plays in the local community is manifold. Not only do the Papandreas provide free medical and general life advice to members of both the Italian and non-Italian communities of the Northern Beaches, offering this advice to the former in their native tongue, but they also make regular donations to cancer foundations, give free talks on fall prevention, support local sporting events, sponsor the local primary school, donate to the local Catholic church, create hampers full of products that are then donated for events at the Mona Vale Surf Life Saving Club, and both compile and deliver medical Webster packs to clients free of charge. Considering the significant presence that the Papandrea family has in the community and the wide-reaching impact of their generosity, I believed it was important that they received recognition for the work they do. I would like to think that many of the pharmacy’s customers would be interested to learn about the family’s history, particularly about their immigration from Italy to Australia and how they came to open a family-run business in which the members’ ages range from 22 to 72 and where a third generation of Papandrea pharmacists is imminent.
The pharmacy’s clientele primarily consists of middle-aged and elderly customers, many of whom have been served by the Papandreas for several decades and whose children and grandchildren now visit the pharmacy. This demographic informed my decisions regarding the format and presentation of my historical project. In order to engage both younger and older members of the community, I decided to make an information booklet which would be available as both a hard-copy from the pharmacy and as an online PDF, accessed through a link on the pharmacy’s functioning website (URL: https://www.pittwaterpharmacy.com.au/). Moreover, as I wished to focus on the family itself, the majority of the booklet consists of interview excerpts. By providing these intimate glimpses into the Papandreas’ personal history, rather than merely recounting a factual history of the area, I hoped that my intended readers’ engagement with the content would be enhanced considering their individual connections to the family.
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Given the highly personal nature of the project, the foundation of my research was the collection of oral histories from four members of the Papandrea family and four members of the general public. This was achieved by using my iPhone to record interviews, followed by a combination of manual and assisted online transcription. Although I mainly utilised individual interviews, I also facilitated several group interview settings which were highly beneficial as interviewees were able to supplement each other’s recollections and thereby provide a more complete retelling of the past. The individuals I interviewed were generous with their time, for which I was very grateful; although it has been a challenging undertaking to present these oral histories in a condensed form, it was a privilege to listen to their diverse insights. I have had to be selective with the excerpts used in the booklet – with almost five hours of audio recordings, I initially felt too overwhelmed to commence the transcription and dissemination processes. However, through persistence and determination, I was able to select critical segments that most accurately reflected the Papandreas’ immense generosity and the contributions they have made to the Northern Beaches community.
While the booklet does contain a substantial amount of information, the text has been intentionally interspersed with images, kindly supplied by the Papandrea family. The choice of font and font size was deliberately selected to maximise the booklet’s readability. Furthermore, the booklet’s layout has been designed to not only convey the pharmacy’s historical origins, but to also emphasise the services it provides today. This pro bono work is what makes the pharmacy unique – the level of personalised care that all customers receive, regardless of whether they are a first-time visitor or have been coming to the pharmacy for decades, is hard to find anywhere else. This is particularly pertinent in the contemporary climate where big-chain pharmacies increasingly dominate the pharmaceutical field and threaten to overwhelm small businesses. However, the Papandreas are highly philosophical about this. They know that they will always have to compete with these larger businesses, especially in terms of ‘budget’ pricing, but that will not stop them from providing the exceptional level of individual care they are known and valued for.
Pittwater Pharmacy Website URL: https://www.pittwaterpharmacy.com.au/

Ravi chops a cheese toastie into several strips and disappears out the back to deliver it to his daughter.
An inner west local takes a beer from the fridge and cracks it open. He looks to pay with his credit card and is gently told that Parliament only takes cash. He is invited to have the beer anyway and bring the cash later.
The barista tells me, “It’s the refugee chefs and the cooks that are working, doing catering or in the café, that have the stories that are important to be told and heard – to create the human interest that will shape policy.”
Parliament on King, a small café at the Erskineville end of King St, breaks down the traditional barriers that exist in the strict separation of home, work and community. In my early visits to Parliament on King, I noticed three dominant narratives that were challenged by this space.
Firstly, Parliament provides a counter narrative to the dominant narrative of separating personal and public space. When I was first welcomed to Parliament, Ravi the owner greeted me as he ran a cheese toastie out the back to his daughter. I experienced for the first time the intersection of personal and public space at Parliament. Growing up in Sydney, I’ve witnessed western home culture that is filled with gated communities, homes encircled by fences, and a clear distinction between those on the inside and those on the outside. There’s an entitlement to personal space, an obsession with having a space that is your own, and a focus on the nuclear family before those beyond. Parliament on King has shown me that this separation of home and work, family and the wider community, is not the only way to live.
Parliament is like a communal living room. There are vibrant conversations and a sense of familiarity amongst strangers. ‘Customers’ pick books off the shelves to discuss the insights pencilled in the margins. A woman in a pink velvet dress is out the front playing a ukulele rendition of Satellite of Love. The café’s windows are open to allow voices to enter, along with the stream of bubbles coming from further up King St. The unplanned sounds, the masses of books, the aroma of coffee and the delivery of toasties to Ravi’s daughter all help to create this sense of home. This is demonstrated at an even deeper level in the way Parliament actively seeks to facilitate a sense of home and belonging for refugees and asylum seekers in Sydney. When I think about my friends and myself—many of whom are in the process of moving out of home for the first time—it makes me wonder how we can reconceptualise ideas of home and community to be more like this.

Secondly, Parliament provides a counter narrative to the dominant narrative of consumer capitalism. The local beer drinker was astounded by the offer to pay later and came rushing back from an ATM up the road fearing he’d forget. The barista at Parliament had turned a clinical transaction into one that built trust and community. He had personalised a depersonalised experience. The customer’s discomfort and confusion with the situation highlights the radically generous and community-oriented posture of Parliament. Again, Parliament was able to demonstrate an alternative to the traditional experience of the customer service industry, which is so quick to turn customers away when money isn’t paid in the moment. In my visits to Parliament on King I have seen numerous customers struggle to find cash to pay their bills – myself included! And each time, I have seen the staff’s consistent trust in the customer’s integrity when they don’t insist on payment then and there – or sometimes even at all. On my first visit, Ravi pointed to the ‘Pay It Forward’ teapot under the passionfruit vine and said, ‘Someone’s already got you covered’.
This counter narrative also manifests itself in Parliament’s rejection of growth and scale as the predominant markers of business or commercial success. At social enterprise conferences, Ravi has engaged in countless discussions about growth and scale of change. Ravi reflected, if Parliament grows to the point that we’re not actually able to sit down, be present, listen and talk with people, what’s the point?
In an interview, the barista at Parliament also commented on scale: “Well, yeah I think it’s a small place changing things for some people. We can only affect the lives of so many people who are working here and who have opportunities. At any single time that’s about ten people. And that’s massive, because you’re changing ten people’s lives.”
I love that. I love that Parliament is not all about scale, growth, expansion and productivity. In the world of social enterprises and social change, Parliament has helped to reorient my understanding of ‘productive’ social change from the quantity of lives changed to the power and beauty of being present and listening to a person, even just one.

And lastly, Parliament provides a counter narrative to the dominant political discourse around asylum seekers. Politicians such as Dutton, Morrison, Abbott and the like, have used their political profiles and platforms to label asylum seekers “illiterate”, “illegal”, “burdens” and “fake”. Amidst these voices, Parliament provides a space in which all people can come and be trusted. Ravi said to me:
“The assumption when you walk in the door here is that you are a good and trustworthy and kind and honourable and decent person, because most of us are . . . If you look at the world and the way it works and the rules that are in place, everything is set up because of our distrust of a small minority. It just makes more sense if the rules were set up because of our faith in the majority.”
Parliament provides a space that affirms all people and counters the narrative of fear and exclusion with acceptance, community and joy. But not only is Parliament on King a welcoming café space, it is also a social enterprise catering organisation that trains asylum seekers in hospitality skills. The work they are doing at Parliament is relationally-focused and counter-cultural. As I attempt to co-construct one part of their public history, I hope that I can represent their stories with the same authenticity they have shown me.

Over the semester I got to work with the Woonona Shamrocks Rugby Club to uncover the club’s history for their 50th anniversary in 2019. I helped out with the club by assisting on a Thursday morning when the older members would mow the field and paint the lines for the coming home game. In this time, I got to interview several members of the club and had the opportunity to be granted access to look through the restricted Illawarra Rugby Union archives which informed me on the early history of the club. Initially, for the project, I aimed to help with writing the book for the 50th anniversary, however, I quickly learned that this task was too large, and I would not be able to complete the book within my timeframe. While continuing to assist in creating the 50th-anniversary book, I decided to create a Wikipedia page for the club, this was a great way for me to contribute to the club in the short term and allowed me to create a digital archive that can be used to assist future researchers whilst also promoting the club. Creating the Wikipedia page and assisting with the 50th anniversary book are all ways in which I assisted in helping the club directly.
The second part of my project does not directly benefit the club but is a way in which I can use all the information I have gathered to present a finished product that not only will promote the Shamrocks but benefit the greater rugby community. I have decided to create a videocast or vodcast. I initially decided to just create a podcast, however, I felt that it would be more engaging if there was a visual element to it. I audio recorded rather than video record the interviews as I felt it was too invasive to video the people being interviewed and wanted to showcase the truest perception of the club that I could capture. The vodcast concentrates on the decline of Australian Rugby, the common argument is that this decline is the cause of the neglect of grassroots rugby. The vodcast uses the Shamrocks 50-year history as a case study on a local scale to highlight issues and changes over time on a national level. The overall message is that clubs are built with social connections, with the neoliberal influence of rugby it is losing this social aspect. The Shamrocks from 50 years ago to now is similar, however at a junior level cracks are starting to appear with one participant stating there will not be a junior rugby club in 10 years. Australian rugby is not dead there is still a pulse at a grassroots level and it is these people that I have spent this semester with that is keeping this pulse to continue beating, not because Australian rugby is helping them but because they are helping each other. And this is not indigenous to the Shamrocks but many clubs around Australia. The way to fix Australian Rugby is for rugby to be in union, meaning that this sense of local community needs to emulate from the grassroots to the Wallabies. The last line of the Shamrock songs encapsulates the motivation of the club to continue the struggle through the decline of Australian rugby, ‘until we hear that bell, that final bell, Shamrocks will fight like hell!’.
Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woonona_Shamrocks_RUFC
Vodcast – https://youtu.be/OEaGBurEUN4

When I began this project at the start of the semester, I was a little lost as to what I was going to do and who I was going to work with. Having only moved to Sydney this year from Western Australia and not knowing any non-for-profit or community organisations I was quickly extremely concerned with how I was going to progress with this course. After doing some research, which included a lot of googling ‘non-for-profit organisations Sydney,’ I stumbled across the Rule of Law Institute, an organisation I knew nothing about. I didn’t know whether they needed any help, let alone what my project would be should they consent to my volunteering for their organisation.
This project provided myself with an invaluable experience. The Rule of Law Institute of Australia serves a vital and important role in promoting civic education and an understanding of the rule of law for the youth of Australia. My project was based on providing the Rule of Law Institute with my most valuable asset, and the asset they lacked, time. The few staff at the Rule of Law Institute are too busy to be able to take time out of their days to focus on reading multiple articles, reports, periodicals and laws. I filled this void and did the research that was necessary for those working at the Rule of Law Institute to write an article for the journal LexisNexis.
The research project I embarked on was focussed on gathering the background information on the state of the rule of law in Hungary, Poland, the Philippines and Australia. Although this project was extremely conventional in an academic context and lacked the creativity of some of the other projects, it provided me with the skills necessary to work in a research institution or think tank in both Australia and beyond. To know that the research I compiled on the rule of law was going to serve a purpose in an academic journal was extremely fulfilling, Furthermore, before embarking upon the research I first had to learn about the rule of law itself, what it is, where it comes from, what constitutes it.
The significance of this project is where its importance is realized. Firstly, the project allowed for the Rule of Law Institute to continue focussing their work on their civic education projects and to continue spreading the rule of law. Secondly, the project will directly contribute to the understanding of the state of the rule of law globally, something that is in crisis. This project will allow for continued intellectual debate and has directly contributed to the development of the scholarship on the rule of law. Finally, and most importantly, it serves a purpose of delving into the role of the rule of law in Australia and how the Institute can mould its education and lobbying to those areas that need most attention within Australia. In my research, I found that there is an immense amount of complacency towards the rule of law in Australia, and this leaves the Australian public open to rights violations and exploitation by the government and our legal system. There appears to be a great need for rule of law academic work in Australia given this complacency, as it is only through academic work that support for the Rule of Law Institute can be developed and grow. Through my contribution to this journal article, hopefully this will be addressed in some regard, especially given the focus I placed on the anti-terror legislation that is extremely dangerous to the Australian public.
My research project has been extremely valuable, to my own personal growth as a junior historian, to the development of the rule of law in Australia, and to the Rule of Law Institute. Most importantly, it has been a tremendous and valuable learning experience, both in the information I learnt about the state of the rule of law but also in the opportunities there are beyond the realm of academia for historians.
I encourage anyone reading this to read about the Rule of Law Institute and all the vital work they do.

Rule of Law Institute of Australia

Travel and immersing myself in new and dynamic cultures and ways of life has always been a passion of mine. I also hold a great amount of respect for people and organisations that are dedicated to helping those in need to help themselves. For this reason, I elected to work with the Australian Himalayan Foundation (AHF). The Australian Himalayan Foundation is an Australian charity committed to improving the quality of life for those living in remote areas of the Himalaya. They aim to achieve this through working in partnership with the people of the remote Himalaya to improve living standards through better education and training, improved health services and environmental sustainability.
So what am I actually doing with the organisation? Well after meeting with the CEO Carolyn Hamer-Smith for coffee last week, Carolyn explained that one of AHF’s goals for this year was to create a history of the company’s major achievements since establishment. I was later emailed a list outlining what exactly the company wanted included in this list and got to work researching and constructing. I quickly realised that this would not be an easy task. Due to the lack of online data on the organisation and the fact there have been so many people coming and going through the company; both volunteered and paid, it has been very hard to access the needed information to create this list. I have arranged to go into the office next week where I will meet with the sectary who will hopefully be able to give me access to some much needed files and information that will help me with the project. I will also be able to have a further discussion with the CEO about how they are planning on using the information I gather. It has been an interesting journey thus far and I am excited to see where it takes me.

History and literature are tightly linked, and have a multidirectional, relational connection. That is, literature can both reflect and embody history, allowing for an accessible insight into the past for future generations, and influence history by bringing to the fore new beliefs, understandings and norms whilst spreading ideas throughout society.
When I was originally faced with the task of determining an organisation to work with for a project, I spent hours fruitlessly scrolling through the wide array of not-for profit organisations on my local council’s website. After realising how difficult it was to narrow down this vast array of organisations, I began to think about how I could incorporate my interests into this task. Thus, as a history and english major I decided to try to merge both sides of my degree and remembered a scheme that I had seen and heard a little bit about previously, the Street Library Organisation.
I made contact with the Street Library Organisation and began brainstorming some ways in which I could create a suitable project in collaboration with this organisation. After meeting with members from the organisation and discussing a few different project possibilities, we decided that the most suitable and mutually beneficial project to create would be a walking tour based around the Erskineville and Newtown area. By presenting this on a public platform, this task aims to spread awareness of this organisation, particularly as it aims to grow. This area of focus will allow for an exploration of some of the first Street Libraries in Sydney, providing insights into their local impact from some of the Street Library owners.
I hope that this project will highlight the value of this organisation, both in its ability to encourage reading as well as inspiring a sense of community. The reliance on books to be donated allows for a wide range of literature to be available through this scheme, with books targeting all groups in society and of all genres.

When I was younger, I carried around a certain apprehension that was attached to my cultural identity. Growing up and living in Western Sydney, I was aware of how important my personal history was in determining every detail of my life. From my name, to the food I ate, to the language I spoke at home, it shaped me. I was constantly immersed in an understanding of my cultural identity, and the short walk from my primary school to my home would highlight little pieces of me. There was the library that contained archives of Turkish history in the area, that detailed the migration pact that allowed my family to arrive in Australia in 1971, then the men of every colour flooding the mosque for their Friday prayers, and the little Turkish café which served traditional maraş ice cream.
On the other hand, this immersion would become overwhelming, and at times, I found that the ways in which my grandmother attempted to explicitly teach me about our culture, history, and religion, felt contrived. How could I learn about myself without become disenchanted? As history students, we can all acknowledge the importance of interaction with our personal histories, and how essential it is to create a space where that can be done comfortably.
The Austolian Youth Association (AYA), is a not-for-profit organisation which aims to maintain cultural and historical connections between individuals in the local community. ‘Austolian’ is a portmanteau of ‘Australian’ and ‘Anatolian’, created to illustrate the place of Turkish cultural and historical knowledge in the lives of Turkish-Australian individuals. The group holds biweekly dance rehearsals in which members learn dances from specific regions in Turkey, gain cultural knowledge, and prepare for performances at festivals and weddings.
The AYA states that their central goals are:
• To emphasise respect of Turkish culture.
• Improve intercultural communication.
• Promote understanding across cultures.
• Become the central point of cultural learning for youth.

I’ve been allowing my project to unravel naturally, through my interactions with the association. I’ve focused on resettling myself into the association, and becoming reacquainted with members. I’ve begun conducting interviews containing open-ended questions, both with members who have been there from the beginning, and others who have joined recently. Since their current focus is preparing for the ‘Taste of Turkey’ festival, which begins on the 13th of October, I’ve been observing their process of preparation and I’ve found that their clear dedication translates to their desire to represent Turkish history in a manner which reaffirms the importance of retaining cultural knowledge. In my short time back with the association, it’s clear that these members don’t just come here to dance.