#17 - Ginny Stevens (Mangoplah) - Founder, Active Farmers - Physical and Mental Health in Rural Communities

Real People, With Jason Dunstone - Consumer Insights, Market Research, Customers, Design Thinking and More

Today we head to Mangoplah in rural New South Wales to chat with Ginny Stevens the Founder and General Manager of Active Farmers. From humble beginnings as a regular fitness class in a farming community south of Wagga Wagga in 2015, Active Farmers has rapidly grown to 24 communities across rural Australia, including New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria, with 30 communities planned by the end of 2018, and even bigger goals ahead. Ginny discusses growing up on a farm in Tasmania, and at 18 years of age heading to work as a Jillaroo in the Northern Territory, learning about hard work and pushing beyond her comfort zone. Ginny started Active Farmers seeing the need for physical and mental support in rural communities. Yet, has been overwhelmed at the level of need and demand. And, the interest in rural communities in building physical and mental fitness, social connection and addressing high levels of suicide. This is a thoughtful discussion about the critical role the not for the profit program has. As well as Active Farmers' success in gaining community and partner support, and working towards making life in rural Australia better now and well into the future. Real People is a podcast hosted by Jason Dunstone, the founder and managing director of Square Holes. Subscribe to Real People on your favourite podcast player. Jason builds on his 25 years of conducting human-centred research, interviewing average and not so average people (rich, poor, old, young, content and vulnerable) to understand what they believe and how they behave. Check out the Real People website - http://squareholes.com/realpeople Connect with Jason Dunstone on Twitter @jasondunstone - https://twitter.com/jasondunstone?lang=en Send Jason an email - [e-mail] Read more blogs from Jason Dunstone - https://squareholes.com/blog/author/jason/ Find out more about Square Holes - http://www.squareholes.com/ Produced with Apiro Media - https://www.apiropodcasts.com/