Transition Village Wallan is a community managed, registered charity developing an eco – village to provide safe, supported medium term accommodation form local people who are,
or at risk of, homelessness. Homelessness is both a cause and result of mental ill health and can be found across all of Australian society. TVW offers a unique model of care that is holistic and participant owned,
offering physical and metal support, skills education and re-connection to community via a program of work and social experience.
This is practiced through the engagement of local community and Village residents in workshops, and joint supported work experience
TVW aims to be financially independent within one year of the Village opening. To achieve this TVW will pursue the following funding avenues:
1. Grants applications
2. Seeking donations
3. Local event fundraising
4. Community Business Support
5. Developing small businesses to ensure long term stable funding. The first business to be developed in 2021 is the Recycle/Upcycle Op Shop Project (RUOSP).
The Recycle/ Upcycle Op Shop Project (RUOSP) will promote reduction of waste created by opshops going to landfill within the setting of a traditional opshop, while providing financial support for the overarching TVW project..
This will be achieved by the development, over 12 months, of the following in -house programs:
1. Recycling within the shop: use of fabrics, e.g. scarves, T-shirt ‘Bags’ for wrapping
2. A Menders Group of volunteers to refresh items usually considered unusable by traditional op shops e.g. mending hems, sewing buttons, wash and iron.
3. A Makers Group – an arts and crafts group which will create items from otherwise wasted goods e.g. mixed fabrics into hand braided rugs, upcycled clothing for sale or for donation to local homeless agencies e.g. vests made from older blankets or damaged clothing items.
4. A sustainable education program for volunteers and residents to help them understand the causes, impacts and solution of climate change personally and in their community. This learning will be applied
to the management of the op shop. Volunteers undertaking this learning unit will gain a pre-accredited certificate in Sustainable Retail Practices.
The RUOSP will support:
1. Climate change adaptive actions – recycle, reduction of waste to landfill, learning new skills, building community resilience and connection.
2. Local people who are homeless and resident in the TVW Village by providing long term funding to secure financial viability of the mother project
3. Local community by creating a central hub for community activity, based n sustainability principles
4. Village residents and local community by providing a retail space for work experience opportunities – TVW is working with a local education centre to provide a Retail Training Course for project volunteers.
5. Financial support for the overarching project Transition Village Wallan.
Expected outcomes and evaluation:
1. Reduction of waste going to landfill
– gain base knowledge over first year even when including the immediate stock management
– reduction by 25% of waste annually over next three years.
• Evaluated by weighed volume of waste to landfill.
2. RUOSP has a reputation for supplying high quality recycled/ upcycled goods
• Evaluated by increasing sales of stock, high numbers of return customers, customer feedback (6 monthly surveys).
3. Stable core number of participants in the volunteer shop floor roster and the Makers and Menders Groups
• Evaluated by numbers on rosters and participating regularly in groups
4. Retail success. Year one shop will open for 2.5 days per week (18 hours per week) Year 1 – profit of 25% over operating costs, increase by 20% for the next three years.
• Evaluated by shop profits in excess of operating expenses, and able to be transferred to the overarching TVW project. Shop will maintain or increase hours of operation by end of Year 2.
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