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Stories of Wonder platforms and celebrates the real impact Deakin students, alumni, researchers and staff are making in the world, right now.
Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code: 00113B
Jayden Battey is a community leader
whose life has been shaped
by curiosity and a deep commitment
to helping others.
From living alongside and supporting
people in community housing,
to advocating for fairer systems at home
and around the world,
Jayden’s story reminds us
how important it is to show up for
and support others.
From the lands of the Wurundjeri people,
This is Stories of Wonder.
Jayden Battey, welcome
to "Stories of Wonder."
- Thanks Dom. It's really,
it's really good to be here.
- Well, it's lovely to have you.
So you've been doing
community-focused work
since a very young age.
How did that begin for you
and what drew you to it?
- I think that I was just
born a fairly curious person.
And I think that like
having a sense of empathy
is something that I don't
know, nature, nature, whatever.
That was just part of like my early years
that people should care
about each other, right?
Like that's a kind of foundational
building block of life.
And I think that as a young person,
I was also a very anxious
and quite insecure person.
I was also a very anxious
and quite insecure person.
So I think that the idea that
people might feel rejection
or some sense of
disconnection from the people
or the world around
them felt like something
that mattered deeply to me.
as I got older and just
have had, you know,
people who've cared about
me and coached me and,
yeah, wanted to invest in my life.
I think I've just been really
grateful for those experiences
and if we have that sense
of empathy for each other,
then, you know, there's just,
every person has an incredible capacity
to make a difference in wherever they are.
So I think that's kind
of maybe the foundation
is just that people have
really cared about me,
made me feel welcome and
therefore I want to make sure
that other people have
that same experience
of welcome as well.
- Yeah, interesting.
You kind of want to pay it
forward from what you received.
- I think so, but I also think that,
I mean, different things
grab people's hearts
in different ways and I think
maybe something that fills me
with a sense of like
unease or an injustice
that I feel like I, that I just
feel strongly in, you know,
my heart is that, you know,
if people don't have a sense
my heart is that, you know,
if people don't have a sense
of like agency and choice
and like genuine connection
with the world around
them, that just feels
like the biggest injustice to
me, that people feel ignored,
like the biggest injustice to
me, that people feel ignored,
that people feel excluded,
that people are, you know,
shut out by the world around them.
And that whether it's because
they then don't actually
have any opportunity or
they feel like they don't,
like that, that's just really
great something within me
that I can't quite explain.
So I think that, yeah, as
just my life has gone on
and opportunities have come
up to be part of things
that can help make people feel included
or just recognise like their
dignity and their worth
and their sense of, you know,
they have something
valuable and, you know,
meaningful to contribute
to the world around them
and that could be recognised.
That just gets me really excited.
So, yeah, I think that's
kind of the journey.
So, yeah, I think that's
kind of the journey.
And then opportunities have just come up.
I mean, you don't have to look too hard
into the world around
you to see that there is,
you know, a significant need,
and we live in a fast-paced,
very connected world,
but like a shadow side
of that is that there are
cohorts of people that are, you know,
every step the world takes
to be more connected,
they are like a step further disconnected.
So I think that, yeah,
that those opportunities to just
be part of different
movements to, you know,
in even just like really small
ways to help reverse that,
or maybe bring people along the journey,
or alternatively to remind us, you know,
those of us who are moving fast
in this really connected world,
to remind us that, whoa, okay,
this is not all about us.
I think those are important
and yeah, I've been really
glad to be a part of those.
- Yeah.
So in 2022, you wrote an
article for the ABC titled,
"I live with 28 other men and my wife."
A pretty provocative title there,
but can you tell us a bit about
that and what that story is.
- Yeah, lockdown hit in 2020.
And I mean, everyone just had
different experiences of that.
And it feels kind of
cliche to kind of go back
and keep talking about
this COVID experience.
- Right, but at least we're
calling it lockdown instead of,
you know, we get a lot of those,
and that happened in 2020.
I think we all know what
happened, yeah, but-
- And my wife and I were
living in a nice rental
in Blackburn, Eastern
suburbs of Melbourne,
leafy green area, wealthy affluent area.
And we had these series of experiences
where we just were reminded, I think,
of people in our community
who were being ignored
by what was happening.
So there was an illegal
rooming house not far from us
that a group of people were living at.
- What is an illegal rooming house?
- Sure.
- For those who don't know.
- Well, maybe the story will explain it.
And so in this particular house,
it was just like a property,
but the owner was a
dealer and he was dealing
and he had a bunch of people
who were living at the house
who were his clients.
And so he was charging
them exorbitant rent,
not obeying by kind of
general tenancy laws
around overcrowding, things like that.
So it's not like a registered
house or anything like that.
It's just like a rental property,
but operating in a way with
a large number of people
living there, charging them all rent,
not recognising, you know,
as this kind of basic tenancy rights.
And it was a crappy situation because,
yeah, he was dealing to them,
and so there's this
dependency on this person
who managed the house.
And we saw just like
situation after situation
of people who were clients or
who were living in that house
just having these incredibly
heartbreaking experiences.
So one day, we'd gone for
a walk and came back home,
and there was a guy at the
bus stop on the main road,
not far from us, with all
of his bags around him,
and he was just in tears.
And he like needed an
ambulance, like he was injured.
and he just didn't have a
phone, didn't have like an...
Anyway, so that was one story.
Another day, someone had
overnight been injured as well
in a different way by
someone else at the house
and had also some kind of experience
where he was running from police,
and so he clambered over
their fence and into our fence
and then jumped up onto our roof
and then climbed over our back fence
and then eventually got
picked up by the cops.
And I don't really know too much more
to the story other than that.
Other than that, I slept
through the entire thing.
(both laughing)
And found out about
it in the morning.
- So it had a big
effect on you.
- Yeah, that's right.
But chatting to the
neighbours in the morning
just kind of got the sense
of, oh, what's going on here?
And then a third time, someone
had come out of the house
and I was working in our
garage during lockdown
and heard this moaning outside
and this guy was clearly high
and, you know, not able
to control his body
and he was not in a good state
and so we called an ambulance.
And anyway, one by one, these
experiences kind of happened.
And I guess something was just triggering,
Mikyla, my wife and I,
thinking around, you know,
all of this messaging around us,
this public health campaigns around like,
stay safe, stay at home,
stay safe, stay at home.
Like, but you can't,
like, how do you do that
when you don't have a home
or when your home isn't
a safe place to be?
or when your home isn't
a safe place to be?
So an opportunity then
came up to move into
a different kind of rooming house.
So based in Kew and the
organisation that runs it
provides long-term accommodation
for people on low incomes.
And so there's no end date on their lease.
They're therefore as short or
as long as they need to be.
There's a sense of
community and connectedness.
They've got meals provided
six nights a week.
There's, you know, tenancy support
and mental health supports around them,
wraparound support services
that they can connect to,
neighbours who connect
in and care about them,
and, you know, community
groups that are involved.
And sort of a part of this model
for the organisation that runs this house
is that there are live-in house managers,
so people who are there
just to be alongside
the residents there
and not mental health care professionals,
not doctors, not, you know, like,
all those residents are
engaging with those people
on their day-to-day already anyway,
but people who are just there
because they wanna be and they care
and they can help create
a sense of welcome.
And I think-
- And that's you?
- That's myself and Mikyla, my wife.
So we kind of moved into this place
and pretty immediately, I think,
just that experience living
alongside these residents
started to challenge maybe
some of the ideas we'd had
around our understanding of what community
or connection really means.
- Right, what's an example of that?
- Yeah, so these residents have, you know,
they're all on low incomes,
that's why they can qualify
to live there, right?
But for many of them, that's
just a part of their story
and they have, you know,
they've been imprisoned
or they've left family
violence situations,
or they've got acute
psychiatric conditions,
or they've got disabilities or, you know,
other factors in their life
that are stopping them,
or preventing them from engaging fully
in the world around them.
Or that are stopping other people
because of their perception of them
from engaging with them, right?
- Yes.
- And in lockdown, as like
all of my mates and colleagues
were anxious and overwhelmed
and scared of the changes
and like disconnected, you know.
We're in this house with
28 guys who, for them,
the norm is that they're
already disconnected
from the world around them.
They're already, you know,
they're already experiencing
that sense of rejection
and exclusion, right?
- Yeah.
- But,
the level of empathy and forgiveness
and like capacity to have
tolerance for one another
amongst just those guys was
like really extraordinary to me.
And they, you know, living alongside them
was like inconvenient in
the sense that, you know,
it takes up your time and attention
and things happen that
you'd rather not deal with,
like, you know,
blocked toilets.
- As in for you
over them?
- Yes, yeah.
Probably both, right?
Or like the fire alarm goes off
and like everyone's, it's chaos, you know?
But regardless, it was like,
no matter what happened
in the world around them
and as case numbers climbed
and the world got more and more anxious,
they just kept connecting with each other
in the most meaningful,
ordinary, non-remarkable ways.
And that was really encouraging to me.
And I'd previously maybe
thought about connection as,
you know, like connecting
with as many people as we can.
You're like, we're so
globally connected now, right?
All the time, you know, our
brains are engaging with people
from all places, but the
pace of life was just slower.
and the residents just were, you know,
way of life was just,
I think I just granted
a different appreciation
for the importance of the
non-remarkable everyday moments
that matter when you spend time together.
- Yeah, and it's amazing to
hear about that situation
- Yeah, and it's amazing to
hear about that situation
that was then created, but
then to keep, you know,
through that story, you
kept setting the context
of the pandemic happening
on top of that as well.
It's such an already
extraordinary situation
and then adding this, you know,
global extraordinary situation around it
that sort of prompted this.
- And when writing the article,
I think that what I was,
if I was hoping to achieve something,
it was that I think this is a moment
when so many of us are reconsidering
what it means to be connected
to the world around us.
And maybe there's a gentle
invitation in that moment
for us to not just like ride the wave
of hyper-connectivity online,
But to stop and pull back
a moment and just remember
that actually like our
local neighbourhoods
really matter as well.
- Yeah.
Yeah, we're so connected,
but we're also not.
- Right, yeah.
- What is your day to day?
You talked, you know, a
bit about it here on there
in illustrating, you know,
what that situation is,
but I don't know, day to day,
what does that mean for you?
What does that look like?
- So at the house, so my,
Mikyla and I live there.
So we, you know, put out brekkie
for the guys each morning
and, you know, hang out-
- Are we talking about cereal,
toast, the works?
- Cereal, toast, the basics.
You know, make sure that
there's tea and coffee
and sugar and milk and, you know,
like nothing too remarkable.
Respond if there's
emergencies that pop up.
So, you know, someone
needs a hospital trip
or, you know, whatever's happened there.
Make sure that people feel
welcome when they arrive.
So, you know, you've been living
on the streets for a while,
you move into a place that's brand new,
it's gonna be scary and intimidating,
and it makes a difference having someone
who is just there to welcome you
and like you've got their phone number
and you can ring the doorbell, you know,
10 metres from your own and you know
that they're gonna be able to be there
and just like help you figure
whatever you need to figure out.
Someone who can just like
make the awkward introductions
to other people easier
and slightly less awkward.
That's our gig is to help build community,
make sure the guys feel safe.
And that's kind of our life at the house.
Through the day, I work
for an international NGO
called Baptist World Aid.
So we're an aid and development,
a humanitarian response organisation.
And I look after our partnerships
team here in Australia.
So fundraising, engaging
Australians in advocacy
and ensuring, I guess that, yeah,
everyday people in
Australia can align the way
that they live in a way that resonates
with what I think are fairly
common values for us all.
We don't always know how to respond.
- And final question on this part for now,
like might sound a bit obvious,
but like, is it stressful?
- Living in the house?
- Yeah.
- I think all relationships
have some sense of ease
and some sense of stress, right?
Like any relationship in
your life is complex, right?
So I think there are moments
when it's busy or intense,
maybe I wouldn't say stressful,
but I think just as much as the
environment is unique in it,
it can be heavy sense.
It's also incredibly meaningful.
And I learn so much from our residents,
probably much more than
they learned from me.
And I think it's a, yeah,
just, it is like really
genuinely a joy to live there.
- Yeah, that's so good to hear.
You studied economics at Deakin,
which sounds a little
different to kind of, you know,
the work that we're
talking about, you know,
for the community and
development work that you do now.
So I guess, help us connect the dots.
What is the connection there?
What is the connection there?
- I studied economics, I think,
because I'm a curious person
and I wanted to understand
more about how the world worked.
That might sound kind of silly,
like everyone knows how the world works,
but actually there are entire systems
that we engage with every day
that we just take for granted
and we don't necessarily
put too much thought to.
And even when it comes to,
you know, those systems,
sometimes we see that they're
imperfect and we're like,
"Throw 'em out, change
the system," you know,
and that's really easy to say,
but the reality is,
like those systems have
just as much as they're there,
maybe like in a broken sense,
those systems also lead
to like economic dignity
and a high quality of life
for like most people on the planet.
So I think, you know, it
can be a bit simplistic
for us to just blindly advocate sometimes
to things where we don't understand
like the nuances of
the way a system works.
like the nuances of
the way a system works.
So I think that I was curious
about having like more language
and maybe more credibility,
but really just like a
piece within my own self
about knowing that when I'm
talking about something I care
about, I can talk about that from a place
of being informed rather than just, yeah,
feeling like there was
something that I was missing
underneath that.
So yeah, that's kind of why economics.
Also, it was a slight surprise.
I started a commerce degree,
did my first economics
subject and was like, "Whoa,
this is really fun."
I didn't think I'd like that.
- Interesting. Really fun.
- Yeah. Well, I don't know-
- Probably not every day
that you-
- I thought it was fun, yeah.
- Well, I guess like, you know,
how has it shaped your
worldview and your understanding
of how all these things are connected?
And you've talked about
it a little bit there.
Can you go into how, like,
how it's made you a
more effective advocate?
- Yeah.
I think sometimes,
oh man, maybe in so many different ways.
I think it's partly the,
like, learned content, right?
Like, sure, that's important.
But I actually think just
the processes of thinking
were more impactful.
Like I think doing my economics
degree with Deakin led
to me being a more
intelligently curious person.
And you know, there are
plenty of blind spots,
but I think that I have
systems of thinking now
that make me a more
effective learner in my life.
And you know, the world around us
is constantly changing, right?
Even, you know, it's been
a few years since I studied
and you know, our economic situation now
is different from what
it was five years ago
or 10 years ago or 20 years ago.
And it will be different
again in five years from now.
But the ability to look
at and map out an economy
and the way that the people
within that economy operate,
not just in their practises
and buying behaviours,
but in their mindsets and the way we think
and the stories we tell ourselves
that influence our behaviours,
I think that's hugely valuable.
So I think that's actually
the biggest learning for me
is just systems and ways of thinking.
And you see different people
do that in different ways.
But I think that's the benefit, right?
Is you watch and observe different people
challenging questions and
challenging each other
and disagreeing, and
that's really rewarding.
- And so in how it's made you
a more effective advocate,
is it giving you the sort of language
or the right sort of way to look at
what change will have impact?
- Yeah, I think so.
I mean, yeah, am I an effective advocate?
Maybe, hopefully. (chuckles)
But-
- That's the real question.
- Yeah, but yeah, I think
I'm maybe more cautious
about jumping on a bandwagon on a policy
that I think needs
changing and more curious
about what are the
implications of a change.
Because sometimes you
wanna change a policy
and the obvious change
actually doesn't lead
to the outcome that you want it to, right?
- Yes.
- There's policy
and then there's like how that
policy plays out in practise
as people engage with it or as,
you know, people enforce it,
or as, you know, yeah, so
you can change the rules
of the game, of life that people play in,
but those rules are not
necessarily straightforward,
and people are not just rational beings
that follow rational,
you know, consequences.
We're informed by emotion and perception
and greed and good values as well,
and so there's so many
different influences there,
so I think, yeah, economics degree
just maybe gave me a foundation
of wanting to understand that more,
and I think that makes anyone
a more effective advocate.
- And it's putting you
on the spot a little bit,
but like, is there anything in
your work that you've found,
like through this better
understanding of, you know,
from an economic perspective of something
that people might not
be fully conscious of,
but that actually does
have a lot more impact on,
you know, on the kind of work that you do
on the community level
from the economic level?
- Yeah.
Yeah, maybe. So I think there's
different justifications
for why something might be a good policy.
And actually we were
just chatting about this
before the podcast with some of the team.
So obviously, I work in community housing
or live in, you know, community housing.
And, you know, we can, as a
society, have these attitudes
around how much that costs the taxpayer
or what's the cost to
society for, you know,
why should we subsidise
housing for a group of people?
They should just work harder, right?
But, you know, even if you
leave all moral arguments aside
But, you know, even if you
leave all moral arguments aside
or ethical considerations, and
if you have zero care at all
about how people end up, the reality is
about how people end up, the reality is
is when you don't house
people in safe environments,
you lead to much greater
incidences of hospitalizations,
people living in a psych ward,
people in overcrowded scenarios,
more emergency department presentations,
more people in prisons.
All of these things are more expensive
than just housing someone in safe housing
and putting around some basic supports.
and putting around some basic supports.
So I think, you know, you
can do the maths on that.
Like the amount that
even we in Victoria spend
on imprisoning people.
I know so many people just
from a personal experience
of living with the guys who have bounced
between prisons and
streets and unsafe houses
and then prisons and then
streets and unsafe houses
and then found dependencies
on substance use
and, you know, find themselves
in the emergency department
every few weeks.
And, you know, like you see
these patterns of people's lives
that just basic safe housing prevents.
And then I've also seen the impact
of that basic safe
housing preventing that.
And so then you can do the math and say,
okay, well, surely this
is a better outcome.
Economically, like it's cheaper
for us as a society, right?
But also like for quality
of life, not only for them,
but for everyone in the community.
So I think, yeah, sometimes
what we think as a cost
is actually far less expensive
than the reactive approach
that we tend to take in
our policy decisions now.
I think that's interesting.
- Yeah, that sort
of perception versus the
actual reality on the ground.
How has what you studied at Deakin
empowered you in your career?
- Yeah, I mean,
I work in international
aid and development, right?
So, you know, our economy is so wrapped up
in people's experiences of poverty.
I think this is the
thing around the systems
are really important,
but they also don't work for everyone.
Like our systems have
enabled millions of people
to lift themselves out of poverty
over the course of the last,
you know, 50 years, say,
but there are still broken elements.
We have enough food
production in the world
to feed everyone.
We produce way more clothes as
a whole society than we need,
but there are still people
who can't access these basic things.
So there's like a distribution inequity.
And I think that when you
consider some of these realities
of wealth and non-wealth or like having
and not having understanding,
like the way that our systems work
allows you to think about
more informed responses
to what's gonna be an effective
solution on the ground.
It's maybe one thought,
like kind of related to the economic side,
but my minor was in global studies.
And as part of that global studies,
I remember doing like sociology units.
And I feel like those with Deakin
also gave me a deeper appreciation
for wanting to understand
the way that people think
and what are the forces and
the worldviews around the way,
the stories we tell ourselves, right?
That change our behaviours.
So, you know, working
with a community overseas,
like you can take an approach and say,
"Well, okay, if there's
a distribution inequity,
"we could just give these things, right?
"Provide X, Y, and Z."
And you might assume
that that's gonna lead
to a long-term solution
for that community,
but it's not always the case,
because actually, good
development practise
means working with people,
and it's not just the
tangible assets they have,
their sense of self and sense of worth
and their understanding
of their own capacity
and their desire to be
leaders within their community
and what they perceive as
the opportunities for them
or what they perceive
to be safe, or not safe,
or risky or not risky is so much,
you know, the social assets, right?
It's so much of seeing a
community being able to experience
like a deeper fullness of life.
So I think, yeah, there's
the economic side,
but economics is really about people.
And so, yeah, I think
combined with that sociology,
I found that fascinating at
Deakin, like that mix together.
And find that I still
all the time feel like
I'm thinking about this
interesting mix of, yeah,
money and assets and, you
know, what are the economics
and then how are people interacting
with the systems that they engage with?
- Totally, very interconnected.
Not one or the other,
they all go together.
Tell us a little bit more
about your time at Deakin.
Did you study online or on campus?
- I'm a cloud baby, so.
So actually I started, yeah,
I started my degree elsewhere.
Did a year, paused for a
while to start full-time work
as some opportunities came up,
and then decided I wanted to go back
and finish my commerce degree.
And so I'd only done a
couple of commerce subjects
at that point, and Deakin was,
it was the university
that had the flexibility
to allow me to study full-time online
while working full-time.
So it was probably just
a pragmatic decision.
I think Deakin's cloud setup
was just far more advanced,
even at that stage, kind of
pre-multiple years of lockdown
and everything going online,
that made it work well for me.
But then also, because my
first year back at Deakin
was 2020, so every university
ended up going online.
I think the infrastructure
was already there from Deakin
to make it like, there was no change
in what my experience was gonna be,
whether there was a
lockdown or no lockdown, so.
- That's really good to hear.
Any highlights of your degree,
any favourite units or
lecturers that you wanna name
or put under the bus?
- No, no one's going under
the bus, you're safe.
I mentioned my sociology unit earlier.
Anna Halafoff was one of
my lecturers for that unit,
and I found her a really curious person,
as in she herself is
a very curious person.
And I really appreciated learning from her
the way that she understands world views.
And maybe a learning
that I maybe took away
from that unit is, I mean,
she's done a lot of research
into spirituality and religion
and the way that it informs
people's world views,
and maybe in a way that's
different to what we in
kind of like secular
Australia tend to think about.
Like we tend to, you
know, our policy decisions
in education and things like that,
I think sometimes erred
towards seeing religion
or spirituality as a private sphere thing
that's maybe like a cultural practise
that you can practise in your
family or in your community,
or in your religious institution,
whatever that looks like.
And then you can bring a secular self
into the world around you.
I think I already knew that not to be true
before studying at Deakin,
but I think her research around
even Australians' responses
to the idea of spirituality
is interesting.
And in various writing or teaching,
she's helped to make an
argument to say that,
well, actually, most Australians,
and particularly young people,
have some level of
spirituality in their life.
That's different for everyone,
and it's not like saying
they should view this
or they should view that,
but just at a factual basis.
Like most people believe
that there's some element
of spirituality to themselves.
And so that informs, you
know, the way that we show up
and operate in our world.
And not just at home, but in
every area of our society.
Broadly around the world,
that is overwhelmingly true as well.
Like most people around the world
are religious in some
context, in different faiths,
different expressions of that.
And that faith, or those
religious practises and beliefs,
like don't just shape certain
traditions or behaviours,
they shape their entire way
of viewing their interactions
with humanity around them,
their decision-making,
what they value, how they work.
- Values, morals-
- Absolutely, at a really deep level.
And you can't just separate that
from them showing up in the world, right?
That's not how that works,
regardless of whether
you want it to or not.
And so in Australia, I think
our religious education,
like our understanding of
people's deep worldviews
maybe is a bit lacking compared
to what it could be around,
if we don't understand the ways
in which people's faiths and
spirituality shapes the way
they engage in the world around them,
then we fail to actually
understand them as full people.
And then the decisions that they make
and what they value and
the behaviours they display
won't make sense to us.
I think that leads to
tension and conflict.
Whereas I think the more
deeply we can understand
and appreciate one another,
even if we disagree,
we can walk the brain paths, you know,
walk the learning journey
that they're going on
and gain a different appreciation
and find some common ground.
So anyway, shout out to Anna.
- Yeah, shout out to Anna.
And beyond, you know,
the units and lecturers,
I mean, you started
studying during the pandemic
or you were studying during the pandemic.
Did you make connections?
- Yeah, surprisingly.
I say surprisingly, not because
it's hard to make friends,
but I think I made an
assumption studying online
that you'd be pretty
disconnected from other people.
- Yeah, I think that's a bit
of a widespread assumption.
- Yeah, yeah, but I actually found
like the systems were really well set up
and the way that even like
our classes and workshops
and tutes and things just worked
at a practical level meant,
yeah, we made friends.
So we had like a study
group of a few people
that like formed, you know,
from a couple of different classes
and we connected and we just like zoom in,
like hang out and study
or whatever and play games
and muck around and,
yeah, it was nice to walk that journey
with other people who were
also doing the same thing.
Yeah, easier to make friends
online than you might think.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- That's really good to hear.
And you were working while you
were studying, weren't you?
- Yeah.
- Tell us a bit about that experience.
How did you sort of balance that?
- Yeah.
I don't even know. (laughs)
I know that's a bad answer.
That's an unhelpful answer.
- Yeah, you probably just did it, right?
- Yeah, you just do it.
I think lockdown kind of
made it easier in some ways,
like what else was I gonna
do with my time, right?
I wasn't going anywhere.
- Yeah, true.
- But no, I think that you have
to work hard, be organised,
set good boundaries,
look after your health,
but it's also just take some hard work,
and that's okay too, yeah.
I also think that they
can have good flexibility.
The trimester model was nice.
Like I think that the
shorter period of time
that's a bit more intense
allows you to then take a break
a little more often as you, you know,
go through each trimester.
It also lets you squish
more subjects into a year.
So, you know, I just overloaded
and then you do all three trimesters
and you finish everything earlier.
Which I think when
you're working full-time,
like you're not studying
just to finish a degree,
you're studying because
you want to learn something
that's gonna influence your career
or change the way that you
engage in the world, right?
So, I think you...
Well, I think a value that
I have is like I wanna be
a good learner in life and I'm curious.
So yeah, I wanted to kind
of soak up that experience
and then be able to apply
it sooner rather than later.
- Yeah, you saw the value
of getting that done.
- Yeah, I think so.
- Of getting
those subjects done.
- Yeah, so I think
it worked quite well
actually, work full time.
I also had a flexible
job, which was helpful.
Like if I needed to shift
things around, I could.
But again, the cloud kind
of model worked well.
Like, you know, I wasn't,
I mean, even if we hadn't
been in COVID lockdowns,
like I wouldn't have needed to leave work
in order to get to a
lecture at a certain time.
Like I can engage online afterwards
and structure my week in
the way that I need to.
So I think that flexibility was helpful.
- Yeah.
You have a documentary.
- Yeah.
- At the moment.
And not only is it out,
it's on SBS at the moment,
but it's also won Best Documentary
and Best Emerging Director
at the Melbourne Documentary
Film Festival in 2025.
It earned gold in cinematography as well
at the Australian
Cinematographers' Society Awards.
It's called "Love in the Walls."
Tell us a bit about it.
- I talked a little about that
changing sense of connection
for me and maybe just my learning living
with the residents at home.
A reality for many of our residents
is that they do experience rejection
from the society around them.
And, you know, we all have
perceptions of the people
in the world around us,
and sometimes those
perceptions are accurate,
sometimes they're not,
but they're rarely, like a full perception
of the people that we engage with.
So, as we kind of embarked
on this documentary project,
we wanted to let some
stories speak for themselves
and allow some of the residents to share
some of like their experience.
Sometimes, you know, if
you're in a marketing film
or even documentaries you kind of,
people wanna see a neat before and after.
Like this person was
homeless and they came here
and now everything's stable
and their life is awesome.
And the reality is that
that's just not how life works
so much of the time.
Our residents live complex,
meaningful, challenging lives
and they engage in a
whole web of relationships
in the community around them.
And not only do they engage
in those relationships,
they also bring, I think, immense value
to those relationships and
to our society as a whole.
So I guess we wanted to
showcase some of those stories,
those connections, some
of the value they bring,
and also just invite people in the world
who are often moving so fast
and, you know, going so quickly,
hurrying from thing to thing to thing,
often living in parallel with these people
who are, you know,
experiencing great
difficulty and challenge,
but bringing great value,
and the two sometimes just don't meet
except for when you walk past someone,
sitting on top of cardboard
out the front of Coles, right?
So, like, who are these people?
And like, what are their stories?
And what do they bring to the
world that's really valuable?
And how can we learn from
them and support them well?
And how can we understand the complexity
of their experience
without presuming what,
you know, a solution must be for them?
That was kind of the idea
behind this documentary.
The title, "Love in the
Walls," came from a quote
from one of my colleagues,
Amanda, she's our CEO.
And she was saying that,
you know, over the years
of these houses existing,
that people have tried
to quantify and document and
research and, you know, explain
like why is this model
of housing so successful
for this cohort of people
who really struggle
to maintain tenancies
in so many other types of environments?
And she said, "Well, in some
ways, like we know answers
"and we have data and stuff,
but at the end of the day,
"there's also just this very human thing,
"which is that there's love.
"It's like there's love on the walls."
And that was just a
really beautiful moment.
- Yeah.
- So that's what
the documentary's about.
- And how did the documentary
itself come about?
And what was your involvement in that?
- Yeah.
I wanted to film three really short,
2 to 3-minute clips that we could show
to community groups to explain
like what is this housing
and how can people get
involved in supporting people
in their community who might
be experiencing disadvantage.
And then I was at a 30th with the guy
who became the director
and cinematographer, Sam,
and we were just chatting and we're like,
"Wouldn't it be fun to film a documentary
and tell bigger stories
and deeper stories?"
And so then we did.
And the process was super,
I mean, I've never filmed
a documentary before,
but the process was really beautiful,
largely because of Sam.
So he came and spent time at our house
and in the other houses
of this organisation
for about six months with no camera.
And just like spent time
getting to know the residents
and really just wanting to
understand them as people
and also like walk in a
genuine relationship with them.
And then, you know,
they knew that he wanted
to film a documentary,
but then, you know, slowly
brought out his camera moments
that they were happy to invite
him and the camera into.
- He gained their trust.
- Yeah, and not just for
the sake of the documentary,
but like, in a sense of
allowing people to share
the part of their world
that they wanted to share
if they were given the opportunity to.
And I think this is what I
really love about the film
as I watch it is, there's no voiceover,
there's no narrator in the film-
- Tying it all together in some-
- You just exist in these
moments with these residents
and some of them are articulate
and some of them are sad
and some of them are hopeful
and some of them are melancholy
and some of them are poetic
and some of them are frenetic, you know?
But you just get to
experience a moment with them
and hear their story in the way
that they would like to share it.
And I think that grows
our appreciation of them
as real people.
So anyway, then Sam spent
a bunch of time filming
and still hanging out,
and now he still hangs out
but isn't filming, so-
- That's nice to hear.
- Yeah.
- He didn't pack up
his camera once it was done.
- I'm gone!
- All right, thanks, got it, cut.
- Yeah, there's no cut on real
relationships in life, right?
- Yeah.
- Or ideally,
you know, there's no cut.
So yeah, it's a beautiful piece of work.
It's kind of 60 minutes of just sitting
and being without residents.
And it feels a little bit like
what my experience is like
as a house manager with the residents.
Like the focus is on the residents,
but I think, yeah, you sit with people
in normal moments of life
and you hear their
stories unravel over time
and you've lived their stories with them.
So I think it's like a glimpse into-
- A true window into someone's experience.
And, you know, as I mentioned,
it's won some awards,
it's gonna be on SBS.
I think, well, as we film this,
I think it's on maybe
now or very, very soon.
SBS on Demand.
Did you foresee any of that happening
when you kind of, you
know, started this project?
- We just wanted to make a beautiful piece
of storytelling, I think.
And so it feels like every kind of moment
that it gets played or
shown or aired somewhere,
just feels like a cool bonus.
We also produced it for like Dirt Cheap.
So I'm also really proud.
- Oh, well, there you go.
- FYI.
- I'm also really proud of,
yeah, like what's, yeah,
that people really enjoy engaging with it
and find it meaningful
and find it beautiful,
like visually beautiful as well.
And the audio is beautiful
and I think it's a labour of
love for a number of people.
Yeah, I think it's cool
that it's going on SBS
and hopefully some people will watch it.
Maybe what's even more meaningful
is I have been watching
this round of screenings
in like community groups and churches
and other housing organisations.
And like, Homes Victoria did
a screening for their staff
and hearing the feedback from
people from those screenings
or doing Q&As in those screenings,
it's been beautiful to see
how the stories are landing
in ways that feel real.
- And have the subjects of the documentary
from your housing watched it?
- Yeah, yeah, they have.
- What they think?
- Yeah, they love it.
It's actually, yeah, it's been,
I think they're proud of themselves.
- Good.
- And for some of them, they don't care.
And that's fine too.
- That's also good.
- And what I mean by that is like,
they still keep living their
normal day-to-day lives.
Like, that film doesn't change.
But that's kind of the point of the film,
is life is complex and messy,
and it just keeps going, right?
The other thing I think
that was interesting
about the documentary is,
in the sort of year that Sam was filming,
it was just a really hard
year for our residents
in the houses.
And we had, like it's every now and then
someone passes away, you
know, from one of the houses
and it's like a health issue like,
that has finally come
to fruition or it's age,
or it's, you know, and
sometimes more rarely,
but still sometimes it can
be substance related as well.
Across this year, we had just
a string of deaths of people.
It was like just after lockdowns had eased
and support services were
starting to come back in.
And I think there was this
collective sense of like
heaviness and weight out of that season.
And it's like that was being released
for the world as a whole,
but there was almost like
this like compounding trauma
of this like increased
isolation and frustration
and disconnection for the residents
from the world around them.
And so, yeah, and it just kind
of struck at the same time
as like a group of deaths
for like all different
kind of health-related reasons.
And that just sucked.
And yeah, that was just hard for everyone.
And so we're kind of filming
as like just one by one,
these people just passed
away for different reasons.
And so I think there's also
something in the documentary
that is a bit sombre or morose,
or there's a sense of mourning in moments,
but then also a sense
of, and yet life goes on.
And the next day you still get up and eat
and talk to people and work if you can,
or garden, or do whatever you do, right?
So I think it felt like an intimate moment
for the documentary to sit in.
- Yeah, truly.
- Yeah.
- Very powerful.
Let's talk about the future.
I mean, you know, the state of
the world can be challenging.
I mean, we're, you know,
filming this in a week where,
you know, there's sort of
a new war has broken out.
- Yeah.
- You know,
it's easy to feel powerless.
How did you get started
in advocacy yourself
and wanting to do something about that?
- Yeah.
Maybe unintentionally, I
think that great advocacy
is born of experience and
proximity and curiosity.
For example, in housing,
Mikyla and I moved in
and like the goalpost
wasn't to change a policy
or to, you know, like there
was no like outcome in mind
other than like being.
But then I think as you
spend time with people
But then I think as you
spend time with people
and think deeply on issues that matter,
you naturally can become an advocate
just by living in a
way that's more aligned
with your values and what
you wanna see change.
So...
- It's an interesting way
to look at that.
- Yeah, so I think
that over time, as we spent
time with the residents,
like there were just opportunities
come up here and there
to speak into something that
you are knowledgeable about
and care about, and also
opportunities to allow
those residents to speak to things
that they care about as well.
So now, you know, that can
look like engaging in policy
or working with MPs, or a consultation
with housing providers or engaging with,
yeah, different levels
of government on stuff,
or with Baptist World Aid it's, you know,
advocacy is different.
It's around ethical supply chains
for the clothing that we wear
and eliminating modern day
slavery in those supply chains
and protecting the environment
from the harms of mass
production and waste
or around Australia maintaining
its foreign aid budget.
You know, it's very low
compared to even some
of its historic levels
under previous governments
or, you know, being conscious
of humanitarian visa numbers
and families who haven't
been able to connect,
who have fled from Myanmar
after the coup there in 2021.
And I think now, as I learn
more about these issues
in the world around us, I am trying,
as I think we all are, to
live in ways that align
with what we learn and
what our values are.
So yeah, I think the
advocacy has come naturally
out of that, but also I'm passionate
that when things are unjust,
that we have a responsibility
and an opportunity to be
part of changing them.
- You talked a little bit about it there,
which I think is a really
interesting perspective
of, you know, what advocacy can look like.
I think most people would probably assume
that it's a very, very active-
- Sure, yeah.
- Go do something,
go talk to someone, go to
government, go to your MP,
make a difference, but,
you know, potentially
it's just living your values
and doing something a
bit more demonstrable.
But, you know, what advice
do you have for young people
who are wanting to take that
first step into advocacy
and do something about
something in some way.
I think I said earlier
that I think good advocacy
I think I said earlier
that I think good advocacy
comes from like proximity
is really important.
So I think like listening and learning
is just really important, but
advocacy can't stop there.
You have to then
demonstrate with your life
what you are learning.
And then I think that's really important
before trying to take
that message further.
Doesn't mean you need
to perfect everything.
You never will.
Like trying is important, right?
- Yeah.
- Perfection isn't the
goal, right? Like change is.
So yeah, listen well,
So yeah, listen well,
find people who are different than you
and disagree with you and understand them
and where they're coming from
instead of like pushing
them down for disagreeing.
You know, I think that's important.
One of my favourite quotes
is like a paraphrase
of like a section of the
book of 1 Corinthians
and it says like, I could
talk in like all the world's
many languages or in
the tongues of angels,
but if I don't speak with love,
then I am nothing more than
like a clanging cymbal, right?
I really like that kind of like sentiment
that if we don't have a genuine sense of,
we can advocate from a place of fear,
we can advocate from a sense of anger,
neither is necessarily
inherently bad things,
but I think if we want to
bring people on the journey,
then we need to have a
genuine love for one another.
So yeah, love people.
- (laughs) Good advice.
And looking back on your journey,
what role did higher education have
in, you know, what you've been able to do?
- As connected as we are,
but also more like we walk
inside our own bubbles
of knowledge more and more
and selectively so as well.
Like we, you know, like how
many times have you seen a post
on your like, I don't
know, social media feeds
where someone's like, "Unfriend
me if you don't believe this
"or if you disagree with me,
"I don't wanna be friends with you."
And like, you know, fair enough, so be it.
People can pick and choose
who they engage with
and you know, sure, maybe
don't engage too deeply
with people who aren't safe to be around.
But like at the end of
the day, people are people
and we need to understand one another
and learn from one another if
we wanna get anywhere, right?
We don't exist in a vacuum
and you can't just selectively
live your entire life
in a vacuum because it's not productive.
It's not, you might say change
and you know, or feel really aligned
with a small group of people
or a large group of people.
But I think the goalpost is
that we have a greater sense
of like social peace.
Like it's not just about internal peace,
about like a sense of
communal well-being, right?
Or at least I think that's a worthy goal
and I think most of us want that,
whether we think that's achievable or not.
So I think that higher education space,
like any place where you go
into the contest of ideas
and can listen well and
challenge what you believe
and why you believe it is good, you know?
And I think university is
a great place to do that.
I think Deakin's a good place to do that.
- We'll cut there.
(Jayden laughing)
And just finally, you've
spoken a bit about it
in that answer, but
just broadly, you know,
how important is it for
people to give back?
- I think people have their public life,
like it's the life that people see,
and then you've got your private life,
which is you've got a close
group of friends or family,
or people who know you
at that deeper level,
and then you have your secret life,
which is the parts of you that,
it's like your deeper
insecurities or hopes live, right?
That maybe you share with someone,
but some of it's just like still forming
in your own, you know, heart and mind.
I think when we live in a way
where the values in our lived
experience in the public life
don't align that well with
the values in our secret life,
I think we feel tension.
And I think that's where
we feel like anxiousness
and stress and overwhelm.
And if something doesn't quite sit right
and I can't quite explain it,
but giving, like in any sense,
like living generously and humbly,
I think is integral to being able to align
those sense of like the
inner life, that sacred life,
you know, what you hope
and what you dream of
and what you are worried about
where you don't speak to anyone,
and also the public you,
the part that people see
and know and engage with.
So I think advocating
well, living generously,
being kind to one another,
trying, you know, showing up,
I think these are integral to us feeling
a sense of settledness as human beings,
but then also to bringing that settledness
or that peace in the holistic word
to the community around us.
- Well said.
Got some quick fire questions to wrap up.
We're nearly at the end here.
So we're recording this just before
Love of the Walls goes live on SBS.
I guess, would you do
another one of these?
Is there another sort
of bit of storytelling
that you would do to sort
of support this, you know,
this cause and the difference
you want to make in the world?
- Yeah, these stories
remind us to be human
and I think that's a great thing.
Yeah, I think we'd do another one.
The next one I'd love to do
is something around those supply chains.
So Baptist World Aid
surveys the, you know,
data from Australia's
biggest fashion brands,
around 500 of them, and then assesses them
and gives them a score out of 100
on how well they protect
people in their supply chains.
- Oh, boy.
- We don't score
super well across the broad,
but we can do better,
and we have seen better,
but I think it would be interesting
to trace some of those journeys on film.
So if someone wants to
bankroll that, then-
- Call out.
- Please do.
Give me a call
- Right in.
Between work and volunteering,
you deal with some heavy stuff.
So what do you do to
take care of yourself?
- I cook.
- Yeah?
- I run.
I sleep, hang out with friends.
All the normal things.
I don't know, I journal.
Inconsistently, but I should do more.
And yeah, spend time with people you love.
I don't know, all the normal
things that people do.
- Yeah. And you cook a delicious breakfast
from the sounds of it, of
the construction workers-
- Breakfast is my
favourite meal of the day.
- Yeah, so, yep.
And finally, what's next for you?
- I love where I am.
Baptist World Aid is an amazing
organisation to work for
because the cause is deeply aligned,
but also, like I've never
worked with such a number
of incredibly high calibre,
passionate, thoughtful people.
And I just feel like the greatest joy
working with my team there.
So I think I'll be there for a while.
And we love where we live.
So I feel like maybe there
was a time when I was younger
where I was always thinking
like five year horizon,
10 year horizon, like where am I going?
What's the plan?
I don't think I have a plan anymore,
but I'm really enjoying being where I am.
Although I'm really motivated by growth.
Like I love that we get to
see things move forward.
So at Baptist World Aid,
like we wanna make a
bigger impact in the world
and we wanna see more communities
able to lift themselves out of poverty
and we wanna see better
supply chain practises
and we wanna see changes to sanctions
and, you know, situation
for people in Myanmar.
And yeah, I think what's next
is continuing along the path,
hopefully learning and
having fun while doing it.
- Yeah, nice.
Well, Jayden Battey, thank
you so much for coming.
- Thanks, Dom.
I appreciate it.
Thanks for having me.
That's it for this episode of Stories of Wonder.
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