It's nothing about them without them

Lived Experience is all about people using their real-life happenings to help others learn, appreciate and thrive. It is based on activities that enable active client input into the planning and delivery of Mission Australia’s services under their strategic goal of improving paid client participation and client-centred activities.

Funded by the City of Sydney, Lived Experience is an initiative that goes beyond the tenants and staff of Mission Australia to external stakeholders and members of the wider community.

"They wanted to find other ways that they could contribute, not just be in this position of simply receiving stuff.”

“Within the City of Sydney, we had a big network of people that were distributing meals, and what I started to see come out of it was people no longer just wanted to receive those meals, they wanted to also participate and be the ones delivering food to other people. They wanted to help cook these up, to find other ways that they could contribute, not just be in this position of simply receiving stuff.”

Seeing such strength, determination and resilience of the Common Ground community during lockdowns, Kyle and his colleagues were keen to translate that into stronger engagement within their tenant community – Lived Experience’s purpose. In taking it from concept to reality, they threw down the challenge to some of the high-powered minds in the University of Technology Sydney’s (UTS) Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation program.



“We would work with five to seven students, and I would brainstorm with them about some of the more complex challenges around the food, and around social isolation,” says Kyle. “I took a lot from those students. They would work as a group, and they would start to develop innovations on things that we could do within the community. They were doing the community conversations, and further developing, and building the relationships and trust in community.”

“The common thing again was around food and sharing a meal together.”

“The common thing again was around food and sharing a meal together,” he admits. “So, we started to enable those community leaders to have their own long table meals or community lunches or dinners where we would support them to invite their neighbours down, where they would cook up a meal together and get out and eat together.”

"I really saw community leaders start to show up, and it spawned into people being more confident to be able to start being that leader within."

“I really saw community leaders start to show up, and it spawned into people being more confident to be able to start being that leader within; being more confident that they could be the ones that could be initiating stuff.”

One of the participants of Lived Experience has gone on to become part of a Sydney Local Health District’s peer education program, another has parlayed skills as a barista into facilitating support for their community through coffee and conversation, and another participant has gained full-time employment. The list of achievements just keeps growing.

“We had someone who loves to cook, had a background in cooking, and he just wanted to give back to his community,” Kyle adds. “I supported him to get some sponsorship from local restaurants and Woolies and different cafes to get some of the supplies for a cook-up. He would do the cook-up on his own and serve over 100 people. This is how the program really builds confidence and trust and allows people to start going out into their broader community and serving that community in a useful way.”

Lived Experience has received an additional round of grant funding from the City of Sydney, which Kyle plans to use for the expansion of the program beyond municipal boundaries: “I would like to really see where it's able to impact more — having more people engaged – so we’re expanding it to the Macquarie Park area where I'm based now, and there's going to be an even larger community there.”

Based on these early success stories, Kyle also believes that Lived Experience has a key role to play in addressing the myths around people from social and public housing backgrounds: “I think it's super valuable. Popular education and advocacy, and peer support, is really important."

"We can work together to undermine the misperceptions of what the media has portrayed over the last 30 years of people in public housing.”

“It’s important that we continue to counter the stigma of people living in public and community housing, and for the broader community to understand that we have more in common with our neighbours than we think. We can work together to undermine the misperceptions of what the media has portrayed over the last 30 years of people in public housing.”

In the aftermath of their two Brighter Future Awards wins, Kyle is keen to impress a mantra that’s become part of Lived Experience’s DNA: It's nothing about them without them. He explains that the heart of the program is about recognising and respecting diversity in order to bring about greater equality in our communities.

“We need to amplify the voices of people with a lived experience of mental health problems, with disability, people from CALD communities, the LGBTQI+ community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. We have to acknowledge their culture, their knowledge and their rights, and that it does have a high value in our society.”

“And so, with myself and colleagues, we’re continuing on our journey to educate ourselves on these challenges and what we can do to support and strengthen our communities from within them... I guess that's a very broad, more abstract way of thinking about Lived Experience.”

In thanking those who have contributed to Lived Experience’s success – Mission Australia, City of Sydney, the Addison Road Community organisation’s affordable grocery store and the Sydney Local Health District and their peer education – Kyle makes an important addition: his wife.

“She was my sounding board,” he confesses. “A lot of these ideas and strengths really came from her as well.”