This month we spoke with Sophie Kavoukis, Community Development Officer (Neighbourhoods), Campbelltown City Council, about her role, her takeaways from our recent LG Professionals SA Community Development Network Forum, and how she spends her free time volunteering as an English tutor.

What is your role and how long have you been in local government?

Campbelltown Council is my first experience working in local government, and I have been here going on 8 years – time flies when you are having fun!

As the Community Development Officer (Neighbourhoods), my role focuses on initiatives that foster connection. Initially, this was our local food projects – supporting our independent community gardens, coordinating Councils Fruit Crew and the Community Orchard volunteer programs, and coordinating our citywide Neighbourhood BBQs program. It also involved working with our community to set up and run community-led initiatives such as the Newton Community Garden and the Campbelltown Repair Café.

Over the last couple of years, my role has evolved and expanded to also focus on multi- and interculturalism, particularly with our changing, diverse community. As well as hosting Campbelltown’s annual Diwali competition, I am currently working with our Punjabi, Hindi and Mandarin speaking community who are aged 60 years and over, on the InMyLanguage video project, funded through the Office for Ageing Well.

What I love about my role is that it always involves community but allows for a variation of focus and tasks. 

Within your role, what's the best part about working so closely with the community on the ground each day?

Working with the community on the ground means I can get to know people on a deeper level. Through uncovering their stories, you can learn more about what matters to them, what they think of and what they want to see in their community.

Connecting people to opportunities and seeing people build their own networks or get involved in and shape their community gives me great satisfaction.

You recently attended our LG Professionals SA Community Development Network Forum: Building Belonging. What was your main takeaway from the Forum?

At this Forum, Sebastian Greer, Manager at Welcoming Cities, said: "Diversity is the reality of our communities, but inclusion is a choice". This has really stuck with me.

Tell us something about you that we don’t know??

Something not many people know about me is that I have recently started volunteering as an English Tutor with the TAFE SA Volunteer Tutor Scheme. I have been matched with an African woman who is here on a humanitarian visa, and I visit her once a week and support her in learning the English language.