Introducing Dr Sara

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Both my children have been involved in Millennium Kids for a number of years and I’m very proud to contribute to the team as a Council Member. All the members of Millennium Kids are extremely generous with their time and expertise, and as a result I’m always learning how to care better for the environment. I’m continually inspired by the intergenerational and intercultural supportive ethos of everyone on board. At present I’m assisting my daughter Isabelle, who is on the Youth Board, with all her different projects, including teaching other kids about how to help black cockatoos, designing letterbox drops, and we also share a joint mission to find and interview Everyday Earth Heroes and bring their stories to more people. I love to help MK share their stories and look forward to working with the team to showcase the amazing work they do through various online tools that I use in my work. 

Sara Foster is an internationally published, bestselling psychological suspense author living in Western Australia.

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From little seeds

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So exciting to venture out to Brookton with some of the MK team to see the revegetation program we started in the late 1990’s and to check out sites for our Cockatubes, made at a previous GreenLAB workshop. A wander around the revegetation site was good for the soul with thousands of trees planted by Millennium Kids over 5 years over 20 years ago. 

Wind through the sheoaks and heaoks, the sounds of birds and a snake necked turtle or two in the waterhole.

Gary and Linda Butcher were MK Youth Board members in the later 1990’s with Gary presenting his project to revegetate his family farm at the 2000 Leave it to Us conference in Eastbourne. UK.

Here is a reflection of the day  from current Youth Board member, Lucas.

– the silence has presence

– the love of all the people

who went into shaping

this place.

 

#lifeonland #partnershipsforthegoals

 

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Introducing Chris

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Hi I am Chris. I am an MK Youth Board member. I love Millennium Kids because it feels like we are all one big family, supporting each other’s projects and interests. My favourite project is GreenLAB as I love seeing people fall in love with nature, especially Lake Claremont

I hope to make our monthly GreenLABs at Lake Claremont bigger and better in 2025, and of course having lots of fun (and chocolate) along the way!

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WA Tree Festival at Applecross Primary School

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Lunchtime was a great opportunity to sit under the old Jarrah tree at the front of Applecross Primary School to celebrate trees. The tree was there before the school was built, 120 years ago, so gathering under the shade of the old tree was a perfect place for students to reflect on how we can protect, monitor and increase canopy, a major goal of Millennium Kids GreenLAB program. The young poets knew how lucky they were to have an old tree in their school grounds, and they pondered how to care for trees and to find ways to let the community know how important they area. Everyone wrote a poem, including special guest, Dr Tim Johnston, Director Treenet, who came over from Adelaide to take part in the Millennium Kids programs, supported by the City of Melville, as part of the WA Tree Festival.

After some quiet time the students shared their poems and everyone agreed that writing about their love of trees was one way to share the message that trees are important.

Here’s one by Aaliyah for you to ponder.

Fresh, crisp air

They breathe, they help us breathe

Swishing, flowing, dancing

Bird song, sweet song, sweet bird song

Green trees, leaves.

What if we had no trees?

Despair, upset, depression

But we have them

So look after them

For future generations

For our children

To keep our world’s harmony.

 The poems are currently being reviewed from a series of Poetree Slam workshops run during the Festival and ten poems will be selected for a special Millennium Kids  WA Tree Festival Newsletter with great prizes for the poets.

Thanks City of Melville for supporting with GreenLAB Initiative in the WA Tree Festival.

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Introducing Anna Butcher

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Did you know Millennium Kids has a Youth Board of 15 young people ,10 – 24 years, and a Council of 8 members over 25 years? The Board and the Council meet together to report, plan and make the strategic decisions overseeing the governance of the organisation, just like a regular Board.

Hi, I’m a farmer and Adult Council member at Millennium Kids. I love MK as it gives young people opportunities and empowers them to make a difference. In 2025 we hope to make nesting boxes for the Carnaby cockatoos on the farm so they can raise their families and call the farm home.

 

By Anna Butcher

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1000 Actions for the Planet – Izzy at St Stephens

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In March 2025 I went to talk to two Year 3 classes about my cockatoo project. I showed them a slideshow with lots of photos of things I have been doing to help the black cockatoos, and they also watched my YouTube presentation. Then I brought along a handout they could fill in to find out how much they had learned about the black cockatoos. The kids seemed to really enjoy the sessions, and the teacher, Connie, also put me in the showreel that was sent home to parents, which helped to spread the word even further. I am planning to go back to the school and talk to the Year One classes.

By Izzy, MK Youth Board Member

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Introducing Josh -Deep Tech, Leadership, and Millennium Kids

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My name is Josh and I’m a member of the Millennium Kids Youth Board, leader in the GreenLab program, and a Director at the Friends of Lake Claremont.

I often will lead myself down a rabbit hole obsessing curiously over articles, books, journals, and any other publications around the term people coin “deep technology”. This is an emerging field of advanced technologies with complex research, a prolonged startup development timeframe, and high initial capital requirements that operate in an effort to solve a niche-specific problem.

Most importantly I believe many of the ventures in this deep tech field have the solutions to solve many of the world’s most appetising challenges. Currently, I’m on a curiosity-fuelled mission to explore the multifaceted dimensions of global challenges.

One interest I have is to seek how synthetic biology can provide solutions to solve the plastic pollution crisis by developing a circular economy, re-engineering biological systems and redesigning materials of everyday items (such as food and drink product) in a sustainable way. Be amazed – there are companies that already exist pioneering to solve the above problems I mentioned – Samsara Eco, using enzymes to break down plastic polymers into monomers (plastic’s building blocks); Uluu, using seaweed as feedstock for bacteria to produce biodegradable plastics; and Eden Brew, using precision fermentation to produce climate friendly dairy products (think milk and ice cream) without the animal! Aren’t they all just incredible!

I see my role as a Millennium Kids leader being to create, creatively communicate, and lead facilitation, so those just as curious as me can join the team to take a piece or chunk (however ambitious they can be) of the global challenge trifle – not only because trifle is layered with many different flavours – also because it’s one of my favourite treats!

I love Millennium Kids because of the array of flavours everyone brings to the table creating the most diverse, decedent, and brightly topped off sundae. The further I dig into it, the more hidden gems (not only chocolates and lolly snakes, fruits) I find. The biggest win I had in 2024 was being a participant in the RAC Ignite Leadership program, which Millennium Kids youth leaders facilitated. The soft skills gained from the program and mindset shift pushing you to be a future-thinking leader is underrated and highly invaluable in an ever-rapidly changing world where you need to be at the frontier edge of a field to tackle a challenge (just like those deep tech startups mentioned before).

In 2025, I’ll be taking on a lead role in Millennium Kids’ GreenLab program, in addition to the other programs that Millennium Kids runs – Agents of Climate Change (AOCC), RAC Ignite Leadership Program, and more! Whilst undertaking my university studies in biochemistry and molecular biology, I aim to find ways to get more involved in the problem solving sustainable future industries of the world, keeping a key eye on opportunities for internships, expos, and other events to connect, create, and collaborate – further fuelling my curiosity.

 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuaplum/

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Celebrating Trees at the WA Tree Festival

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We all know what a tree is but what makes them unique and special.

On Tuesday 15 April 15 children aged 5 to 8 and their parents came to Ellenbrook library to investigate and explore the trees in the neighbourhood. We worked out how to tell one tree from another and why size matters and so does age and nationality when we are talking about trees. We discovered that all of the trees had been planted in the last 20 years so we could see how they grew differently and which ones the birds and insects preferred. We wrote a poem together and chose a tree seedling to take home and plant to give habitat for animals.

TREES

Trees make me feel happy

Beautiful, cool and wonderful

many shapes and sizes

Oxygen shade and love

 

Trees make me happy

They have very different seed pods

Female she oaks make nuts, males make pollen

Bees help to pollinate trees

 

Trees give us the energy people need to move

I like climbing amazing trees.

I’m happy when I can climb them

I love trees.

 

Thanks City of Swan.

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Kids on Country Work Experience  

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We got on the train from Coolgardie early on Friday morning. We went down to Perth to do Work Experience with Media on Mars. We went to the Boorla Bardip WA Museum to look at different exhibitions, how they were set up and how they told their stories.  

We went straight down south in the morning. And then we did artwork to show the stories of places that are important to us.  

We went to two galleries down south to learn how they set up different stories and to get ideas.  We went to to Ngilgi Cave again to see the different ways indigenous people share their stories.  

Tamara did 12 hours driver training. It felt good to do driving hours.   I had my learners permit time for a long time. Not many driving instructors.  

On the last day we reported to Cat, Mindy and Pierre and showed them the artwork that we are doing for the exhibition at Boorla Bardip.  

Thank you Lotterywest and Australian Government Department of Social Services for supporting this Kids on Country program. 

Written by Tamara and Krystal  

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Mentor Nick

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Hi, my name is Nick Cook, I am a mentor working with Millennium Kids Inc. 

For me it is a great privilege to be collaborating with the outstanding team at MK Inc. 

It is so very vital that we empower our youth to make their contributions towards a better world and a better future. It is after all their future. MK gives our kids a real voice. It is so great to see the MK model at work, taking kids ideas and concerns about the environment and creating real change through action. 

I have been a Director of Friends of Lake Claremont Ltd since 2010. I was the FOLC Coordinator from 2017 to 2024. In 2021 I was added to the Honours list at Conservation Council WA. In 2022 I co-founded the WA Tree Canopy Advocates group. 

In my capacity as Coordinator of FOLC we initiated a collaboration with MK to develop a youth leadership program which has been a terrific success. As a result we now have a well trained group of young leaders that are continuing to develop youth engagement strategies at Lake Claremont. We now have 2 youth leaders on our board of directors. 

This youth program will be critical to the future of our organisation 

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