Country: Australia

Love is My Medicine

Johan Danno has lived a life most dreamed of. Selling everything after college and leaving on a one-way ticket to Australia at 22, Johan left South Florida with a degree in marketing, IT, partying, surfing and music. Rising to the top as an IT consultant in the corporate world, a series of highs and lows personified in a moment that changed his life and inspired him to quit his career to become a travelling musician & songwriter.
Setting out chasing his dreams, Johan went from love to heartbreak, and from empty bars to packed shows with stages. A positive and happy face, his battles within and in private at times would rip him to shreds… until his work with plant medicines, meditation and spirituality, became his medicine for his anxiety, depression, and reason to create music.

Using breakdowns to inspire breakthroughs, it was performing and living on the road out of a suitcase meeting people from rich and successful, to liars and drug dealers, Johan discovered what connects us all, and the richness life has to offer when the journey matters more than the destination. It’s the unexpected turns. The moments shared with others we feel that is how we guide the ego, feed the soul, and bring light to keep us through our darkest moments.

Join us on a tale of an artist and poet in the truest sense, telling stories where passion, ambition, talent, anxiety, hope and depression cross into an inspiring journey told authentically. Vulnerable. Real insights from what it takes to chase your dreams, befriend your demons, and discover how to travel the distance from your head to your heart.

Educating Communities

Education inspires and transform lives.
Inequity and inaccessibility affect our youngest and most at-risk disproportionately.
Indigenous and disadvantaged children are falling further behind academically as the digital divide widens and lockdowns close schools around Australia.
By connecting remote communities to qualified tutors and teachers, we can enable
societal and generational impact through individual personalised connection.
We aim to bring about systemic changes in equity, using the internet and technology to ensure our most disadvantaged young can access appropriate education, preparing them and providing opportunities for a positive future.

Warrior Within

A story of breaking generational patterns and stepping into your true personal power: your warrior within. As a child I remember trying to talk about the abuse but quickly learned it was taboo in the family. Fast forward to adult hood and I was still stuck in the same patterns. I was hiding in an abusive relationship and fighting depression. It was a dark time filled with a lot of inner turmoil. Something had to change. I had to ask the big question. What was I teaching my children about relationships on a generational level? During this time of transition I discovered essential oils and meditation. This was the birthing of my healing journey and reconnecting with my inner warrior. I was intuitively drawn to write a book about my healing experience to help heal multiply generations. By sharing my story of courage and hope, I honour my true self. We are continuously faced with challenges in our lives and have a choice to step into our personal power and embrace your warrior within.

Double Life

This story is about a person who lives two lives simultaneously in and out of home. He has people who he feels comfortable being himself around with, but also feels uncomfortable being himself around certain others. He identifies himself as a gay man, but is not full out of the closet. His parents are homophobic and yet he hasn’t told them the big truth. He wants to, but is afraid of the outcome. The protagonist pretends to be someone he’s not around his family, but is himself when around his friends. He’s been secretly dating a guy for over 2 years and is happy with him, but the fact that the relationship is kept as a secret from his family gradually eats him up day by day. Eventually, he comes out to his parents, and the result is not how he wanted to turn out. Sadly, the parents and their son haven’t been in contact with one another for years, but the protagonist has a steady life outside of family in terms of work, finance and relationships.

Build the social entrepreneurship movement

I’m a career social entrepreneur with a track record of building platforms, enterprises and partnerships that create change.

I’m driven by a desire to create a more participatory and responsive democracy, and a world where all communities have access to the tools, information and infrastructure to create the future they seek.

While at university I founded Vibewire Inc, to empower young Australians as changemakers and social entrepreneurs, and led it for the first 8 of its now 21 years.

During this time I raised over $1 Million, opened the first co-working space in Australia, convinced the Federal ALP and Liberal parties to allow youth reporters to follow the PM and Opposition Leaders during federal election campaigns and developed partnership with the Sydney Morning Herald, NSW Human Rights Commission and the City of Brisbane amongst others.

Vibewire won the UN’s World Summit Youth Award for Community Engagement in 2005 and I was made a Global Youth Action Fellow of the International Youth Foundation in 2007.

After four years working in the US, first as the first Digital Marketing Director for Ashoka then at Silicon Valley-based HopeLab, I founded StartSomeGood in 2011 with a mission to increase the pace of innovation for good.

StartSomeGood’s platforms and programs provide a roadmap for early-stage and aspiring social entrepreneurs looking to make a difference, helping them move from inspiration to action and impact.

We are very partnership-focused, working with ING, Optus, English Family Foundation, Ian Potter Foundation, UNDP, First Innovators and the Cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth amongst others.

Over ten years we have worked with thousands of social entrepreneurs, helping hundreds of projects/year launch through our platforms and accelerators and continuing to pioneer new ways of funding and growing impact enterprises, including the impending launch of the new blockchain-based crowd-lending platform LendForGood early next year.

Akili Australia

Akili is a Swahili noun. It means intelligence, resourcefulness, wit.
Since time immemorial, the Swahili language has connected different tribes, cultures and nations through commerce.

Akili aims to do the same; connect women with vastly different life experiences through their art, their unique styles and the products they make and use. By connecting artisans in Tanzania, Ecuador and Brazil with Australian consumers, we empower vulnerable women and their culture through commerce.

We offer carefully crafted ethical fashion accessories and homeware handmade in developing communities by social entrepreneurs. Each item makes a statement, and every piece aims to shape a better world for both user and maker, one product at a time.

My name is Fabiana. After working with female Social Entrepreneurs in Tanzania, I decided to create a platform to sell their handmade products in Australia with my partner Vlad da Cunha. We believe that by supporting artisans in the global arena, we preserve cultures at risk of disappearance. In our view, craftsmanship also provides a sustainable alternative to problematic industries, like fast fashion, whilst it empowers women in communities where their fundamental rights are often overlooked.

Designing a pathway to reduced crime

When it comes to true rehabilitation, statistics say that prison is, at best, 50% effective.
Imagine a world where prisons acted as education hubs in which inmates could learn the skills they need to find meaningful employment after their release.
This small but determined team is striving for just that – working side by side with those from a range of diverse and often disadvantaged backgrounds who have been incarcerated for a variety of reasons, to help give them another chance at life.
Their mission is to tap into the hidden potential of those who want to change for the better, make a real difference to these forgotten members of society and, in turn, make the community safer.

Victim To Empowered

Sexual abuse survivor Romecca Sawers displays her courage and inner strength as she moves through her journey in her life to rise and inspire many.

Angel

After losing her sister to cancer Angel decided to use her skills as an award-winning hairdresser and help people suffering from hair loss subsequently changing the quality of life for many.

The Wellness Bus

While Adrian was researching ways to combat one of the most aggressive breast cancers, suddenly his quest became much more personal when his wife got diagnosed. When her oncologist had suggested having more surgery, Adrian’s scientific knowledge meant that they were able to identify more options. Their ‘Wellness Bus’ idea was born out of them wanting to provide women in similar situations with options and a sense of power. Adrian and Elisa have ever since been trying to bring quality care and answers to women in rural Queensland and beyond.

Winter

My name is Mitchell Lancaster, I’m a 24 year old singer songwriter. I have struggled against, and learnt to work with my mental health issues throughout my teen years (and many others). When I was 16 years old, I attempted to take my own life. 2 years later, I was introduced to music.
I have always had a passion for creating and sharing stories, and music was a light that showed me that I was able to transmute my own struggle into a narrative that could, perhaps, land for others and resonate with experiences that are not so isolated as we may believe.
“Winter” is a song I have written myself and produced with my band Dreams of Indigo, and comes at the tale of mental illness from the perspective of an old lover – one who you fail to lock the doors on time and time again.
Sharing this story has allowed me to move productively with my own pain, and opened my eyes to the stigma that surrounds these struggles, and my own desire to demystify it.

Baby Dante’s Hearing Loss Journey

Welcome to the Journey of Dante’s Hearing Loss.
Born Deaf, We received our first set of Hearing Aids at 3.5wks old, after one year and no progress with access to sound, Dante was Implanted with Cochlear Implants, 1 month after his First Birthday.

BOOM, We have access to sound! Now He can hear his mum and dad for the very first time.

We continue to learn Auslan Sign Language, and provide others with Auslan through our daily Tiktok Videos, and creating awareness about deaf children within our community.