On May 17, women leaders will converge on Canberra for the annual She Leads Conference. Women’s Agenda is pleased to once again support this exciting women’s leadership event as Media Partner. We will be sharing articles over the coming weeks from some of the amazing women who will be speaking at the Conference. To find out more, or to register to attend, visit the She Leads website.
Indira Naidoo has been a household name for years, first as a news anchor for numerous ABC programs, and now as the go-to on balcony gardening and food activism in Australia.
Having enjoyed an illustrious career in both of her diverse fields of interest, however, Naidoo believes that she could still learn a lot from young women today.
“I have this regret that I didn’t have a real youth in the way that now I see in young people. I was always quite focused and driven, because when we came out of high school and university, we were just into the economic depression and recession. A lot of it was always just focused on getting a job and getting into the industry,” Naidoo says of her start as a journalist.
“It was always about the next rung, next achievement, next, next, next. There wasn’t a sense that, hey, you need to just chill a little bit. I think a lot of the best ideas come from when you stop focusing and just resonate with another group of people and do something different. Make use of another part of your brain.
“It’s truly lovely to meet young women now, who are aware of that balance a lot more. They understand that a good balance, a sustainable life, comes from good relationships, thinking of when you start a family and children, and how you balance that with your career and creativity as well. I think there’s a lot that young women could actually teach my generation, really, rather than the other way around.”
Naidoo’s career took a change when she realised the importance of experiencing life more deeply, and being more aware of our surroundings. She turned her skills as a journalist and storyteller to food activism, and empowering people to grow and eat their own food, to lead more sustainable lives and to engage more with the environment.
Her career as an advocate for food sustainability has seen her take on roles as diverse as being the media manager and spokesperson for consumer advocacy group CHOICE, to conducting weekly gardening classes for homeless visitors to working with the Wayside Chapel, which she is the Ambassador for.
The uniting factor across her work, however, is that she is passionate about making a difference to the lives of the people she interacts with, no matter how big or small that difference is. As a journalist, Naidoo often felt stymied in how much tangible impact she could have.
“I sort of thought we were going to find solutions to a lot of [the things we were reporting on], and that the ideal world almost is a world that doesn’t really have any need for this style of international journalism; because there are no wars and international conflict. I had a very naïve concept, I guess, of what contribution journalism could make.”
Realising that journalism was not necessarily going to be the space for her to make a difference, Naidoo turned her attention to personal interactions and one-on-one engagement to bring attention back to where our food comes from, and how we can limit our impact on the environment.
“I’ve been very fortunate, I think, that working in global media issues led me to real concern about food and water systems and climate change, which then made me think … Well, is it really about individual engagement, is that really going to be the best way to change this?” Naidoo says.
“I think that gardening is a wonderful way, one of the many ways out there that you can get people to think about nature and the environment differently. A way that you can bring it into people’s urban environments, where they normally don’t get that exposure.
“I think that with any sort of change you want to bring about, it has to come from a place of joy and love. That’s why, for me, gardening is so powerful, because I’ve never met an unhappy gardener; but I’ve met a lot of miserable journalists.”
Choosing her own leadership pathway has turned Naidoo into a key advocate on food sustainability, and has helped her transform balconies across the world from dead space, to urban oases of homegrown food. It may have taken longer than for young women today, but Naidoo has found her balance in a way that continues to change lives and communities.
To hear more of Indira’s insights, and to learn from a line-up of inspiring women leaders, register to attend the She Leads Conference on 17 May at QT Canberra here.