Sunday, June 03, 2007
AMBASSADOR SEEKS PAID WORK
The earth will become molten within a generation:
Ask Lizette Salmon why she resigned from her full-time job to become an “environmental activist” and she turns straight to her two children.
“I wanted to be able to look my kids in the eye when the planet started to melt and say that I did everything I possibly could to try and change it,” Mrs Salmon said.
She won’t need to tell them anytime soon.
The former Melbourne speech pathologist has been working as a project and research officer in aged care, maternity services and brain injury since moving to the Border with her husband, John.
But this year she took what many would regard as the somewhat drastic step of ditching her career to become ...
Wait for it:
... a community ambassador for the environment.
Oh, bravo!
Mrs Salmon decided she was not merely content to reduce the ecological footprint of her own family through the usual means of buying green power, switching off lights, taking shorter showers, reusing grey water, car pooling, and using a bike for transport.
Now she’s writing to politicians, speaking to school groups, making tougher lifestyle changes and talking to others for feedback as she decides on the best approach to her new role.
Just keep reading The Modern Parents, Lizette. It’s done a fine job providing the blueprint for you so far.
It has also seen the production of a regular newsletter entitled Lizette’s Green Progress, distributed to a widening circle of family, friends and community groups.
“I need to see where I can find a niche and where I can be most effective. I am ultimately still hoping to get paid work,” she said.
Hmmm ... the more successful she is, the greater will be her carbon footprint. Lizette may not have thought this through.
Mrs Salmon said the response to her decision from friends and family ranged from support to surprise but most encouraging was that which came from her daughter Pippa, 6.
“She said ‘Mummy, that’s what I want to do when I grow up’,” she said.
She could do it now. Growing up isn’t required. In fact, it’s a distinct disadvantage.
Pippa and her brother, Jeremy, 5, are staunch allies in their mother’s campaign.
Garage sales have become the No. 1 source for their toys and games and quality second-hand clothing for the family has been found at opportunity shops.
Any poor folks out Albury way who were hoping for some cheap winter clothes ... bad luck. Lizette’s got ‘em all.
Mrs Salmon took Pippa and 16 other children on a bushwalk to Hunchback Hill as a party alternative for Pippa’s sixth birthday, providing a nature hunt and rubbish-collecting competition en route.
A home-made gingerbread man and a second-hand book were handed out in lieu of lolly bags.
And don’t even think about playing under a sprinkler.
Mrs Salmon said her move to environmental activist was strongly supported by her husband and she was conscious their good income had partly made it possible for her to take the step she had.
“Partly”?
(Via contrail)
UPDATE. Via EP, more Modern Parents.
