Thrive Festival

March 2023 | Bellingen, NSW, Australia

The Thrive Festival was envisioned by a group of passionate people living in Bellingen Shire at a weekend workshop run by Bellingen Shire Council in November 2020. Mid pandemic and not too long after the bushfires, local residents were given opportunities to discuss ways to build community resilience. One of the recommendations resulting from the workshop was to run a shire wide community event that would strengthen networks and provide people with access to skills, tools and resources to prepare for future disasters.

The festival program was jam packed with a variety of unique and exciting activities that covered a holistic range of important resilience topics such as water, food, energy, ecosystem and economic security. There was also a strong focus on how to prepare for future disasters, such as, fire and flood, as well as, a variety of hosts on mental health and wellbeing activities..