'Just Start with the Little Things’ with Tony Kelly

Do you remember the first time when you heard your favourite song?

Anthony Kelly, co-author of ‘With Head, Heart and Hand: Dimensions of Community Building’

I remember very clearly the first time I was introduced to Paul Kelly’s ‘From little things big things grow’. I was sitting in a lecture on ‘Working with Indigenous communities’ with Tony Kelly. I was moved, confronted and teary. It was the moment that a small flame was sparked in me. I remember it so clearly. Unexpectedly, the voice in my head piped up and said ‘this is the work you will do’. So I latched onto Tony as an idol and from there a little spark grew.

It was an absolute privilege (and entirely nerve-wracking) for me to reconnect with Tony Kelly recently and bring you this conversation. That same gentle and invitational demeanour of Tony’s took me back to where my heart for this work began. To revisit, the ‘head, heart and hand’ dialogical community development approach which Tony espoused, reconnected me with the principles that I fell in love with, all those years ago and which has shaped more than any other modality, the practitioner I have become today.

Tony brings over 40 years of experience in community development work both in Australia’s indigenous communities and globally. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

Episode 5 of ‘Talk the Walk’ explores:

How Tony came to be working in the Northern Territory after the acknowledgement of Indigenous Land Rights
Learnings from entering Aboriginal communities for the first time
The foundation, principles and technicalities behind the dialogical approach to community development
The skill of really listening
The delight of big things that grow from little things
How participatory development programs differ from service delivery; and why governments rarely get it right
Small first steps for social workers in getting started in a dialogical approach to your work
How Tony’s ‘head, heart and hand’ approach differs from other community development approaches
Tony’s struggles of witnessing ‘white on black’ racism, ‘black on white’ racism and ‘black on black’ racism, and how these experiences shaped his international work
Tony’s biggest learnings from the Northern Territory and its influence in global community development
A funny story about a pet kangaroo!
Essential tools for your communication toolbox
The mentors that helped Tony develop an international perspective to his work
Making sense of the text of people’s complicated lives

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