Elm Grove Sanctuary Trust

Yindi Ecology & Spirituality Centre

Saying YES to the future

 

‘Deep ecology and spirituality are fundamentally connected because deep ecological awareness is, ultimately, spiritual awareness’.

Physicist and ecologist Frijof Capra

VISION / PHILOSOPHY

The vision of the Yindi Ecology and Spirituality Centre is to offer a place where younger generations can reconnect with nature, culture, and spirituality, fostering hope and purpose in their lives. Rooted in the values of compassion, sustainability, and holistic education, the Centre would seek to create a nurturing environment that supports healing, personal growth, and a deep connection to the natural world.

By integrating scientific, cultural, and spiritual knowledge, the Centre would aim to empower youth, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, to overcome social and environmental challenges, develop sustainable practices, and find meaningful opportunities for hope in the future. Through partnerships with educational institutions, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Land Councils and groups, and environmental organizations, the Centre would aspire to create a living example of ecological responsibility and positive social change.

The vision for this Centre is in the spirit of the Elm Grove Sanctuary Trust and our purpose for founding the Sanctuary and our charity.

OUR TRUST’S PURPOSE:

Elm Grove Sanctuary Trust/Limited is a Not-for profit Foundation listed with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC). We rely upon private donations from individuals and Foundations who support our work and enable this to continue.

  • Elm Grove Sanctuary Trust offers support, encouragement and hope for all people, irrespective of race or creed, especially when they are in need. Our focus is based upon a deep compassion for all life in respect of the beauty and awe of our natural world. The daily human challenges confronting us all call us to stand beside each other as we seek to find solutions, to lift despair, and to offer hope for better outcomes.
  • We support the need for a holistic approach to education for our younger generation with a focus on community engagement in the education of our young people. We especially seek to support equality of opportunity for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander youth to enable them to reach their full potential despite the effects of colonisation and generational trauma.
  • We hold in grave concern the health of our planet – a direct result of human consumption and failure to realise the sacredness of our natural world of which we are an integral part. We seek to draw people to a greater understanding and connection to our role as Guardians of Creation.

Today, we see the greatest challenge of our time is to offer our younger generation a sense of hope for their future. We see the crisis confronting our youth in Australia today and the worsening failure to find reasons for hope within our young who are the future of our planet. This is clearly expressed in the rising suicide rate, drug and alcohol abuse and crime, and also more widely in an increasing social detachment and alienation. Youth suicide and despair for the future is now deeply imprinted on our nation’s conscience and we feel that urgent action to take a broad and holistic approach to the security, well-being and health of an entire generation can no longer be ignored.

We see an absolute and urgent need to find better ways to mentor and lovingly support our young people who are in despair of a worthwhile future. This is especially evident within Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander youth and the high incarceration rate frequently due to social disintegration, family domestic violence and trauma, drug and alcohol abuse and crime. The separation of wealth in our society where the ‘rich get richer and the poor get poorer’ continues to ever widen this gap.

Richard Eckersley an Australian Researcher who believes that culture is an underestimated social determinant of health and wellbeing argues that ‘a range of economic, social and technological changes have combined and interacted to create a society that has become hostile to our wellbeing, and especially that of young people because of their social and psychological vulnerability. The changes include increased family conflict and breakdown, youth unemployment, poverty, education pressures and media influence along with the emergence of a sense of hopelessness about the world’s future’.

Elm Grove Sanctuary was founded on land adjoining the Kosciuszko National Park Wilderness Area by Laurel and Edwin Lloyd-Jones on 28th February, 1983. The site of Elm Grove Sanctuary is an important and a highly significant place for the Aboriginal people of the Wolgalu, Wiradjuri and Ngunnawal nations and it was the gathering place for tribes to come together for the Bogong Moth Festival. The confluence of the Goobarragandra River and the Bahloo River at this site continues to be a highly sacred place for the local Aboriginal people. The Bahloo River (meaning ‘moon’) was a women’s birthing area and higher up in the National Park were the ceremony grounds and Bora Rings of the men. These rings are still evident today.

In the founding of Elm Grove Sanctuary, Edwin and Laurel Lloyd-Jones’ strong intentions were to enable the land and buildings to be available to all people of goodwill and especially to provide compassionate support to those most in need. In 1987 they gifted the property and buildings over in the founding of the Elm Grove Sanctuary Trust whose Board of Directors, which includes Edwin and Laurel, continue to administer the Trust.

In 2001 the Sanctuary was sold due to age and health restraints of the founders so the work of the Trust was relocated and continues today with the same purpose and dedication on the Far South Coast of New South Wales with a strong focus on supporting a holistic approach to educational support for the younger generation.

CURRENT SITUATION FOR ELM GROVE SANCTUARY AND OUR TRUST’S LONG-HELD VISION:

Prior to the Trust determining to move the work of the charity to the South Coast a strong commitment had been to create the Yindi Ecology and Spirituality Centre (saying YES to the future).

Our vision was to construct a national ecologically sustainable resource centre encouraging, exploring and developing the spiritual and temporal aspect of life in order for people of all background and ages, but especially for our younger generation, enabling them to find greater hope and purpose.

  • To encourage our younger generation to explore their place in the world as they connect to their historical and cultural roots. In encouraging them to seek a new cosmology through the study of their origins and past structures to discover that these are the foundations for hope that can lead them to develop, through life experience and education, their place in the universal story of humankind.
  • To provide a place for the younger generation, to reconnect back to the land and to their spiritual and cultural heritage, that might lead to a new perspective that integrates the scientific, spiritual, personal and cultural into a meaningful whole that is based upon responsible positive, sustainable and compassionate values.
  • To create a space that supports deep healing through quietness, story, gentleness, the beauty found in closeness with nature and responsible action to care for all life including the natural world.

We would see the Centre open as a resource for Schools, Educational and Tertiary Institutions, Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Land Councils, Environmental groups, Eco-tourism groups, Spiritual groups, Healthcare and Medically based groups especially dealing with mental wellbeing, as an alternative focus for Juvenile Justice, Cancer support groups, an experiential resource for Architectural faculties, Science, Agriculture and the Humanities.

We would see this Centre developing as a dedicated partnership providing concrete programs and initiatives which are ecologically responsible. The actual participation of young attendees in the ongoing construction of this larger Centre would begin their spiritual and educational development.

It could provide a living example of sustainable practices in building, energy resources, and biological waste and water disposal systems. It could empower our younger generation to develop skills that might offer hope and opportunities for future careers and creative ventures that are sustainable.

UNDER-PINNING OF OUR VISION FOR THE CENTRE AND THE CHANCE FOR THIS TO BECOME A POSSIBLE REALITY:

 On 16th June, 1999 the Tumut Shire Council’s Town Planner and the Manager of Development and the Environment informed us that the Tumut Shire Council had given unanimous approval in principle for Elm Grove Sanctuary Trust to proceed with the proposed Yindi Ecology and Spirituality Centre.

Unfortunately, an unexpected health situation of Edwin Lloyd-Jones’ caused this project to not go ahead.

 We have recently been informed that the Elm Grove Sanctuary property, and also some adjoining properties are to be shortly placed on the market, so we feel to share our vision.

The current buildings at Elm Grove Sanctuary would allow the programs to begin in a gentle step by step progression with the realisation of the Yindi Ecology and Spirituality Centre being an evolution of the vision. It would be an excellent investment in the future of our younger generation now currently struggling and we feel that this is too important for us not to come together for consideration of how this might be realised.

We hope that this could attract the interest of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Land Councils, Health professionals, Governments both Federal and State, Educational and Tertiary Institutions, the Snowy River Shire Council (formerly Tumut Shire Council), Net Zero Groups working with energy efficiency and renewables, as well as visionary philanthropic contributors.

At a time of crisis facing our planet and our young people, WHO ARE THE FUTURE, we see a need for a Centre where these young people can be supported, loved and encouraged to find clearer directions into the future. Within the peace and beauty found in nature at Elm Grove Sanctuary they might explore their own uniqueness and their purpose for their lives so that we can offer them positive hope for the future.

Should you be interested to know more about this opportunity for a collective of people and organisations to gather to look at this concept please contact me (Laurel Lloyd-Jones) at  egstrust2@gmail.com

or by Mobile 0488 530 070