EMERGING community leaders have been channeling artistic ideas from Darley to make the world a little brighter.
Leadership Ballarat and Western Region leaders' forum participants spent a day immersed in an art therapy-like session, painting wooden bollards to line a public housing estate.
The session followed an intense day of self-focused, personal development in a bid to inject a little more fun into leadership while also focusing on a way to help others.
Buninyong artist Donna Saunders, a 2018 LBWR graduate, helped lead the session at Narmbool on Thursday and said the hands-on experience offered a different perspective on developing leadership skills.
Actually doing and exploring the project hopefully helps getting people a bit more involved in art and how it can make a difference.
- Donna Saunders, Buninyong artist
"Actually doing and exploring the project hopefully helps getting people a bit more involved in art and how it can make a difference," Ms Saunders said. "This can be in looking at other people's art or exploring their own art."
This is the first time LBWR has teamed with Moorabool Shire Council and Darley Neighbourhood House on a community arts project with some colourful support from Haymes Paint.
Participants took drawings and sketches from the neightbourhood house's clients to transfer on to bollards either directly or with their own artistic interpretation.
The bollards will be installed along a plain bike trail near a community park in Darley a suburb of Bacchus Marsh. The area has a new playground and bike trail that children use to ride to school. LBWR participants hoped the bollards would reinforce a greater sense of community pride.
As part of the session, participant and Wadawurrung man Blair Gilson led the group through sites and artifacts of Aboriginal cultural significance in the Narmbool fields. Mr Gilson is a field officer for Wadawurrung Aboriginal Coorporation.
Click on the photo to read Blair's leadership journey below
LBWR has more than 300 graduates. The experiential program was established by Committee for Ballarat and partner organisations, including The Courier, in a bid to create sustainable, connected and responsive communities.
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