The Ginger the Frog Story
The Ginger the Frog Wellness Program supports and creates healthy emotions in children aged 3-7 years and their caregivers.
The program consists of
A travelling musical theatre show – My Superpower
9 partly animated digital stories
An album of wellness songs and creative visualisations – Inside a Star
A guidebook of lesson plans for teachers with downloadable resources.
A guidebook for parents and caregivers with downloadable resources.
Caregiving Consciously – an online course is now in production and will be available soon.
The program is based on 4 pillars.
- Somatic Self Care
- Positive psychology
- Awareness
- Neuroplasticity.
Please go to gingertherfrog/research for more information.
The Ginger the Frog Story
The story of Ginger the Frog began when Sarah’s adult children were little, she created stories to support them in their daily life. The original Ginger the Frog story was about Ginger summoning the courage to go to the other side of the pond to meet new frogs. This story was written to encourage Lucy, Sarah’s eldest, to go to school with courage and the confidence that she would make new friends and have a fun day.
Sarah learnt back then that young children respond well to stories and having empathy for a frog struggling with her emotions was the ideal way to teach emotional intelligence.
Many other stories followed. Tackling other issues such as asking for help, making it right after lying, dealing with anger or anxiety, having the grit to keep practicing a skill, preforming in front of others and many more wellness themes.
Soon children who visited Sarah’s home would ask to hear the stories of Ginger and parents asked, ‘when are you going to put this in a book?’ Almost two decades later, Richard, Sarah’s husband said “Sarah, these stories are really important to share and more relevant now than ever” and so Sarah began the journey of introducing Ginger to the world with the vision of supporting children’s emotional wellbeing.
Sarah has been a practitioner for 11 years using hypnosis, kinesiology, Reiki, mindfulness and meditation. She also worked for 17 years before having children in the film industry so is beer familiar with highly stressed people, especially those in the public eye.
After environmental crisis and now during the pandemic.
Sarah started The Cobargo Wellness Group in early 2020 in response to the Black Summer bushfire crisis that heavily impacted Cobargo and NSW. The Cobargo Wellness Group (CWG) is a non-profit organisation that supports individuals and communities to thrive after crisis and beyond. Sarah soon realized that what was provided for emotional wellbeing ie telephone consultations weren’t going to help with the immediate trauma that her community was experiencing. Sarah organized volunteers to provide body work and massage. People couldn’t speak, they had literally ‘flipped their lids’ and needed something to calm the nervous system and for the physical recovery of the brain so that they could function again and deal with getting a roof over their heads, containing and shooting animals, clearing trees and building fences.
Calming the nervous system and reconnecting the prefrontal cortex was needed before anyone could think about starting to rebuild their homes.
Sarah learnt that she could function well and be of service after the fires because of years of inner work on her mental health and the ability to observe the mind and not be lost in it. She knew when she needed to retreat and practice her own self-care and learnt a great deal, firsthand, about the brain in trauma.
The Cobargo Wellness Group became a NFP so that she could fund the many different programs, workshops and events that were created for the community and constantly evaluated to see what people wanted and what worked. Sarah provided yoga, facilitated a mindfulness course over three months, wellness events, men’s bbq’s, afternoon teas for seniors, chainsaw workshops, community dinners, the three month practitioner roll out, anything that brought people together to share their healing journeys knowing that these would be of value, until the pandemic brought everything to a crashing halt.
This was the ideal time for Sarah to write wellness songs and create the album. Thankfully she had a musician and recording expert living with her, Sam Seidel who made it come alive.
The fear and separation caused by the way the pandemic was and is handled, plus the trauma of the fires and floods has had a detrimental effect on many communities in NSW.
And what about the next generation? Sarah’s research has unearthed a passion in her to help the most vulnerable in our community in terms of mental health. She knows from working closely with people for thirty years that childhood wounds can be carried well into adulthood and in many cases to our graves. The effects on the body and mind can be devastating.
Five-year-olds will have spent more than half their lives absorbing all the anxiety and fear from their major influences – their caregivers. At this time the brain is 90% formed and absorbing everything without the maturity to process it all. The next growth spurt is at 14.
Addictions in adults are caused by anxiety and trauma in our younger years. (Gabort Mate)
“Give me a child until they are 7 and will show you the man.” Aristotle.
Ginger begins in earnest
Sarah created six digital stories about Ginger the Frog in 2016 and these were trialed at a local public school. About 30 parents and students came before classes started and it wasn’t just the children that benefited from the stories and the exercises within them. The parents loved Ginger as well.
In 2019 Sarah went through the iAccelerate program through Wollongong University to set up a scalable business model for Ginger the Frog and repeated this in 2022.
In 2021 Sarah ran the program again with Brighter Futures to get a different perspective on how the stories would work with much younger children and parents affected by trauma. Even though it was well received Sarah felt that the stories needed to be shorter for this cohort. And so a lot of work began. With a generous donation from Arndell College in NSW she employed two teachers to re write the stories, including the original concepts into lesson plans so that schools could use the Ginger the Frog program as well as parents.
“Human beings don’t like change, even when the research shows clearly that our school system isn’t working for our young children or for their teachers. Now we’ve had environmental crisis and the pandemic there is a bigger focus on mental health.
But we need to approach it in the right way. Especially with young children because they can’t sit still or take instruction when it doesn’t mean anything to them. They need to experience emotionally and physically what it feels like to calm their anxiety or anger for example and teach them through story, song and movement and creative pursuits. They have slower brainwaves and respond well to creative visualisation because they live in a meditative state already. We all need to tune into our own internal wellbeing compass, connect with ourselves and our young at this deeper level and show them how to keep that connection going in themselves so they can make good decisions about their health and when met with environmental crisis. A strong emotional foundation is vital. It’s a win, win situation. The Ginger the Frog program helps caregivers become calmer and more mindful, shows children how to release anxiety and anger, and helps both create a deeper connection, resulting in children feeling heard and safe. “ Says Sarah.
Sarah’s research proved that the Ginger the Frog Wellness program needed a secret sauce to really get the attention that young children deserved and for caregivers to focus on giving a solid foundation of wellness themes, strategies and exercises that would help them throughout their lives, and also benefit the caregivers.
A teacher she interviewed as part of her research called Gabby Stroud said “Wow them with a show” to get everyone’s attention and then introduce the program. The program is entertaining and easy to use as well.
Sarah had no idea how to put on a theatre show, or how to get the money to put one on. She had travelled with a theatre sow doing make-up and hair around the USA, but her background was in film and TV and only in make-up, hair and wardrobe. At least the show would look beautiful.
Sarah met Dave Houston through Sam Seidel and the theatre show grew legs. Sam is a great sound technician and Aurora Kurth is a very accomplished performer and so the team started to evolve.
After the fires there was a lot of money given out for different initiatives to help the fire affected communities move forward and thankfully the government and many organisations realised that mental health in our young was important to address.
Dave Houston and Sarah got busy writing the show, the album was finished, and Dave wrote some fabulous grants so that we had enough money to roll the show out in our local area for the indigenous community, in Cobargo and at the Bega Civic Centre.
We now have an opportunity to tour in October 2022 to fire and flood affected areas in Coffs Harbour, Nambucca Shire and Hawkesbury.
Part 1: The Musical Theatre Show – My Superpower
A live musical theatre show “My Superpower” follows the story of a nervous young frog called Ginger, trying to navigate life. Ginger the Frog uses the influence of story, the excitement of live theatre and the power of song and dance to entertain and assist the community to counter
negative feelings resulting from environmental disaster and the pandemic.
It is a high-quality work of children’s theatre that features a variety of song genres including surf-rock, hip-hop, dub reggae, folk and a 70’s disco track. My Superpower showcases emotions such as anger, disappointment, frustration and fear and how to overcome them. It includes ‘games’ (exercises) which help children regulate their emotions and feelings.
Part 2: The Ginger The Frog Wellness Program
The Ginger the Frog Wellness program is for children aged 3-7 years and comprises of nine individual stories, each of ten minutes duration.
They cover topics such as having courage to make new friends, regulating the anger response, making it right after telling lies, how to deal with grumpy people, having grit to learn a new skill and not being afraid to perform in front of others plus many more wellness themes.
The four pillars of the program are Somatic self-care, positive psychology, awareness and neuroplasticity.
These stories are presented in an interactive, partly animated, digital storybook laced with wellness themes and exercises for emotional regulation. The program is supported by a CD of songs and creative visualisations, classroom wall charts and a guide for teachers. It also has a guidebook for parents and creates a dialogue for wellbeing between all young children’s caregivers.
The digital series will be available from October 2022.
Inside a Star – The Album
Inside a Star the CD has nine songs from the kid’s musical theatre show MY SUPERPOWER followed by 8 meditations, guided visualisations and affirmation tracks.
The songs are focused on positive mental health and the guided visualisations and affirmations include themes to help kids create familiar habits for emotional regulation.
Track List
1 Intro
2 Just Breathe (Tanja Dub Station remix)
There are two versions of this song, this is the Dub reggae version. This is a perfect song to play to dissolve anger or calm down heightened emotions. ‘Just breathe’ teaches children the most powerful and valuable tool that we have available to us for emotional regulation; deep belly breathing.
3 Home is in Your Heart
This groovy rap track by Gary the Spider explains how he learnt through a challenging time that his real home is in his heart.
4 Big Pants
An energetic surf rock style track set to motivate and inspire. This song will encourage our kids to be confident, positive, and ready to face any of life’s challenges with courage.
5 Ginger Shake It
When we have challenging emotions, it’s been scientifically proven that shaking helps disperse stuck energy in our bodies. This African style drumming track is a great way for kids and parents to shake like crazy together to clear the air, dissolving stuck negative energy.
6 My Superpower
This funky disco track is fun and positive and features at the end of our theatre show. This song is about exploring what children are good at and most importantly what they enjoy.
7 Shining Star
This is a beautiful song with an important message for our children. We can play or sing this to our children at bedtime reminding them that they are loved and to love themselves and that all the answers are inside themselves, in their hearts
8 That’s How We Glow
Featuring a harp, this dreamy relaxing song is about being in the flow of life and how flow helps us to grow. When we’re in flow we’re positive and our hearts lead us through life.
9 Just Breathe (original mix)
A simple ukulele version
Creative Visualisations list
1. A note for the guardians of our next generation
2. Positive Affirmations to open the heart
3. Guided visualisations
- My Safe Place
- Send a Bubble of Love
- Blow Anger Away
- Love What I Do and Do It Well
- Open My Heart
- Remember Who I am
- Blow Anger Away (short version)
- My Safe Place (Short Version)
- Open My Heart (Short Version)
- Deep Peaceful Sleep
4. Music – Peaceful Pond Atmosphere
This album partners perfectly with the My Superpower Musical Theatre Show and the Ginger the Frog Wellbeing Program that will be available in October 2022.
The “My Superpower” Cast
SARAH CAMPBELL LAMBERT
Founder – Cobargo Wellness Group, Creator of The Ginger the Frog Program, Co-Writer of ‘My Super Power’, Producer and Actor
Sarah had a successful career as a make-up artist, hairdresser and costume designer for film, TV, theatre for 18 years in Australia and the U.S.A working with high profile celebrities. Sarah has practiced, researched and taught mindfulness, meditation and creative visualisation for thirty years and has spent the last eleven years as a therapist qualified in hypnosis, kinesiology, EFT, Psych-K, and is a Reiki master. For the last three years she has provided help for and evaluated approximately 1200 of her community as a result of environmental crisis and the pandemic through the NFP the Cobargo Wellness Group she formed in 2020. This has given Sarah a solid foundation and understanding of how to help people reach emotional wellbeing after crisis and beyond. She serves private clients, runs workshops, puts on community events, and holds retreats. Sarah was chosen to develop her children’s series ‘Ginger the Frog’ by the iAccelerate program through Wollongong University in 2019 and retook the course in 2022. She has business mentors in Germany and the USA that are helping her to create a scalable product with The Ginger the Frog Program that will support children from 3-7 years and their care givers creating mental and emotional wellbeing.
DAVE HOUSTON
Co-Writer and Director of ‘My Superpower’, Producer, Community Engagement Coordinator and Actor
Dave trained in acting at the Victorian College of the Arts and in Screenwriting at RMIT, Melbourne. Dave has been working in the arts since 1988, as an actor, musician, writer, director, and producer. Dave has toured nationally and internationally, performed in numerous shows, written over 20 professional plays and screenplays and 35 community shows and recorded 8 studio albums. Dave has also worked extensively in the youth sector, in community cultural development (CCD) with Indigenous and diverse communities and produced international CCD projects in Mexico, Thailand and Scotland. As an artist in residence with the Royal Children’s Hospital for over a decade he worked on a 3-year bushfire recovery project after the 2009 ‘Black Saturday’ bushfires in Victoria.
Currently Dave manages Full-On Theatre, which has received extensive project grants and created a significant body of work www.fullon.biz
CHARLOTTE AHRENS
Actor
Charlotte graduated in HSC drama in 2017 through Sapphire Coast Anglican College and completed a theatre and on screen course with Acting Performance Studio plus additional coaching with mentor Rosie Traynor.
Charlotte assisted with numerous productions through Theatre On Set and Footprint Theatre and won an award for best actress from Alliance Francaise, in their national French film competition. In 2015 Charlotte was acknowledged for her sustained dramatic and comedic performance in “Seeking Sita” by Theatre On Set.
AURORA KURTH
Actor
Aurora is a highly sought-after entertainer, renowned for her sublime vocals, cheeky comedy and sharp wit. With a career in the performing arts spanning over two decades, the critically acclaimed singer, actress, comedienne and Mistress of Ceremonies has captivated audiences across Australia.
Aurora is a graduate of the Actors Centre, Sydney and The John Bolton Theatre School, Melbourne and a Solo Artist in Residence Program at Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne www.aurorakurth.com
The “My Superpower” and “Inside a Star” Songwriters & Musicians
DAVE HOUSTON is the founder of Full-On Theatre which was founded in 1988 and has created 22 original productions for both adult and family audiences. Dave has also created 2 solo albums ‘The Beginning is at the End’ (2016) and ‘Frontier’ (2020) and one solo EP ‘Alternative Holster’ (2016). He has recorded 7 other albums on his various projects and is currently recording a new album in Byron Bay. fullon.biz/music
SARAH CAMPBELL LAMBERT was the Artistic Director of the album and founder of Cobargo Wellness Group. Sarah created the guided visualisations for this album and has been teaching mindfulness for 30 years. She has previously released a series of meditations. sarahcampbelllambert.com and cwg.org.au
SAMWISE SEIDEL is a multi-instrumentalist musician, sound engineer, backline technician and stage manager. Sam has a wealth of experience all over the world in the studio, on stage and backstage at large festivals and concerts. With tertiary education in sound and live production, for this album Sam also wore the hat of composer and producer samthewise.com
TAMLYN MCGEE is a multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter. She is actively involved in the arts community of the South Coast of NSW, and is currently working on an album for her solo project, Anactoria anactoria.com
PENY BOHAN is an award winning Melbourne songwriter and musician. When she’s not performing her own songs solo or with The Featherheads you can find her tooting her horns with The Pirate Ska rebellion and teaching music around the town.
EMILE ZANGGER is a producer/engineer out of Tanja, New South Wales who is currently based in Melbourne under the name “Tanja Dub Station”. Over the past 10 years Emile has collaborated with various artists domestically and abroad. He is currently working on an LP with members of Judgment Yard tanjasonic-dubstation
FLORENCIA GIORGI has toured through France with a Gospel choir, performed cabaret, hip hop, soul and funk at diverse Australian music festivals, was the singer of the German Metal band Inversion and has joined bands from all around the world. Florencia is also a studio musician.
MAX GARNER TUCKER is a trombonist living in the bush on the far south coast of New South Wales. His improvisations are inspired by nature, and he loves to play in the local community.
CHRISTIAN PYLE is a producer, musician and songwriter from Byron Bay, Australia. He has produced over 300 records and released over 30 songs and music video clips. His studio is called the SS Prawn & Spanner christianpyle.com
Links
The Cobargo Wellness Group www.cwg.org.au
Ginger the Frog www.gingerthefrog.com
Medley of songs from the theatre show and digital wellness program
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4fYG_GMVwY
First episode of the Ginger Digital Wellness Program
https://youtu.be/sxyPqOYilQw
Shining Star the song
https://youtu.be/1MdHvTYhDm8
Performances
My Superpower had a very successful first run in July 2021 performing shows in Wallaga Lake, Cobargo and Bega on the NSW Far South Coast. Total audience numbers were around 750 people despite the covid restrictions that were in place at the time.
Cobargo School of Arts
July 9th 2021
Wallaga Lake Community
July 14th 2021
Bega Civic Centre
July 17th 2021
In 2022, Ginger the Frog will be travelling to the Hawkesbury City Council, Coffs Harbour City Council and Nambucca Valley Council areas to perform My Superpower for fire affected communities.
The next tour
In October we will be touring in Coffs Harbour, Nambucca and the Hawkesbury region performing free community shows and paying shows. Also, free family BBQs and drama workshops for schools and communities.
Funding Partners
Our work is made possible with the generous support of the following organisations.
Australian Council for the Arts
Co-ordinaire
St Vincent de Paul
Cobargo Community Bushfire Recovery Fund
NSW Government
Hawkesbury City Council
Australian Government Regional Arts Fund
Foundation for Regional and Rural Renewal
Australian Red Cross
Eurobodalla Shire Council
Contact
Digital Wellbeing Program for Schools
Sarah Lambert
slambert@cwg.org.au
0417 684 300
Theatre Production, School and Community Engagement/Venues
Dave Houston
dave@fullon.biz
0411 710 081
To arrange interviews and additional information for media outlets
Mel Pickering
mpickering@cwg.org.au
0400 647 330
Or
Sarah Lambert
slambert@cwg.org.au
0417 684 300
The Cobargo Wellness Group was founded in early 2020 in response to the Black Summer bushfire crisis that heavily impacted Cobargo and NSW. The Cobargo Wellness Group (CWG) is a non-profit organisation that provides emotional, mental and physical support to individuals and communities to support them to thrive after crisis and beyond. www.cwg.org.au
What’s been going on at the CWG?
MEDIA RELEASE – 18th May, 2021
The Cobargo Wellness Group was founded in early 2020 by Cobargo local Sarah Campbell Lambert in response to the Black Summer bushfire crisis. This is Sarah’s heartfelt story about her passion for her local community of Cobargo and what has driven her to help her community heal.
‘The fire had travelled right up to the house on three sides, all the paddocks and gardens were black with stray livestock chomping on what was left of the garden. Sarah and her husband Richard walked slowly around the house surveying the burnt down shed, buildings, trees, tanks, and fences…sound familiar?
Some of us experienced less, some of us much worse, but one thing’s for sure. As a community we’re all in this together.’ Says Sarah.
Sarah and Richard’s home had been spared but many hadn’t. When they saw the back wooden deck, Sarah’s favourite place in the world, with cups and a teapot still out from the night before they evacuated, undisturbed by the previous week’s extraordinary events, Sarah knew what she needed to do.
Like many other locals with a variety of ‘superpowers’ she wanted to help with the recovery of her community. Being a practitioner of complementary therapies; a mindfulness and meditation advocate for thirty years, Sarah had a good idea of what was needed, what had contributed to her own resilience. Bodywork such as massage, connection, kindness, empathy and trauma tools that are effective and backed by science. The bottom up approach where you deal with the synthetic nervous system first which heals the physical brain.
She had no idea of the magnitude of what was to follow.
Sarah has been involved with a network of practitioners in the Bega Valley for the previous ten years so a meeting was organised. Vanessa Corrigan, Sally Draayers, Neil Fox and Shereen Green volunteered week after week and our community soon realised the benefits of bodywork, massage, Bowen, Reiki, EFT, anything to calm the nervous system.
There was so much to do. “We’d all ‘flipped our lids’, says Sarah ‘the rational part of our brain went offline and I knew that if we didn’t set to work as soon as possible we’d all be in trouble.’ Even for just an hour with a bodyworker, using EFT, stretching, mindfulness, and just being heard, the journey could begin to loosen ‘stuck’ trauma.
‘People were arriving shaking, crying and finding it hard to speak. The door was always open for anyone who wanted to have a cuppa and a place where we could look into each other’s eyes and say ‘we’re going to be alright’.’
In the early days Sarah organised a chain saw workshop, a Karaoke night to let off steam, yoga and meditation classes, community dinners, therapy sessions and a weekend where interstate practitioners came and helped all of us. ‘I had to work on my own trauma of not being able to meet a fraction of the demand and not being able to get funding. These gorgeous women led by Tracey Keogh came down from the Central Coast and lifted our spirits no end.’ Sarah also facilitated an event where Petrea King came down, a pioneer of mindfulness and meditation and a very similar approach to the CWG for recovery after trauma.
This was a time of roller coaster emotions and a lot of hard physical work which 17 months later is still going for many. Sarah knew that the balance between ‘self care’ and when to seek help was vitally important through her own experience of loosing her birth mother and father, who had passed away in late 2019, just prior to the fires.
There were times when Sarah felt so overwhelmed by personal grief that she thought she wouldn’t be able to keep running the CWG. Driving past the pub during the Salways’ funeral was one such time. However, Sarah was inspired by the work of Elsa from World Central Kitchen and this kept her going
“I was going to collect food from the WCK for one of our workshops and as I passed the Cobargo pub, during the Salways’ funeral was one such time. Seeing the hundreds upon hundreds of people who had come to show their respect for the Salways, I feel apart on my way to Bermi,’ Sarah remembers.
I walked into Kelly Eastwoods and saw Elsa from the WCK shouting orders at everyone, volunteers cooking up a storm and others queuing up to deliver meals. At that moment I thought ‘If she can do it, so can I…if she has the audacity to hold her own during a crisis so could I’. Elsa and I ended up having a really good talk about resilience and grit. There are amazing people in this world that seem to show up just at the right time to inspire us!’
Then COVID hit and everything stopped. With three Wwoofers in residence Sarah set about repairing their land. During this time Sarah continued to work on Ginger the Frog and subsequently met Dave Houston, an experienced Actor and Theatre Director, who loved the concept of ‘Ginger the Frog’. The musical stage show was born.
Ginger is an anxious shy frog who has to navigate life’s tricky issues, face her fears, build resilience and recognise her own ‘superpower’. It’s an everyday story for so many children.
‘Dave’s experience in theatre with bushfire recovery in Victoria, his ten years with the Royal Children’s Hospital, plus Sarah’s development of Ginger the Frog through the iAccelerate program and Wollongong University in late 2019 became a perfect fit and collaboration between the two of us,’ says Sarah.
For Dave Houston it has been ‘an absolute delight to get to know Sarah and Cobargo. ‘I realise I’m an outsider and I haven’t been through what the community has been through with the trauma of bushfire, but with my own mental health issues, I know what it feels like to be stuck, depressed and anxious. That’s partly why I do what I do. To give back. When dealing with trauma you move through the cycle of a victim, to a survivor to a contributor.’
According to Dave, ‘the motivation behind the work that I do through children’s theatre production is to give children quality theatrical experiences, share a story, share music and share laughter with everyone. Because I worked with bushfire recovery in regional Victoria after the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires with the Royal Children’s Hospital, I’m extremely passionate about community recovery especially for children recovering from trauma’.
Sarah has produced an album of wellbeing songs and meditations for kids collaborating with Dave, Sam Seidel, Max Garner Tucker, Florencia Giorgi and Tamlyn Magee. All local musicians.
When COVID eased Sarah set about turning the Cobargo Wellness Group into a not for profit company so that grants could be applied for. ‘I vowed I’d never have people volunteering again for such long periods. Richard thought I was mad but understood and supported me. There’s a lot of work involved behind the scenes with websites, bookings systems, accounting, etc. Without Richard the CWG wouldn’t be happening’.
The CWG had organised house concerts, Men’s BBQ’s funded by Red Cross, visits to our local pre-schools distributing rag dolls made by Leonne James and women all over Australia. A second Petrea King workshop (both had 65 people attending), has presented the Ginger stories and activities for Brighter Futures, (a NSW government organisation which helps parents give their children the best start), a roll out of 288 appointments provided by 6 local practitioners and a 12 week Mindfulness course funded by the Cobargo Bushfire Recovery Fund.
‘The Cobargo Wellness Group was never supposed to be just me and now it really is a group.” says Sarah enthusiastically. Many local people are now employed or have been employed by the CWG and Sarah calls them the ‘Dream Team’.
Melissa Pickering was involved behind the scenes with the practitioner roll out and is working on the structure of the online course for bushfire recovery, which will be available for every community member for free.
Suzanne Dickson is editing the Ginger stories and creating lesson plans for schools. Richard Lambert is still volunteering, does all the tech stuff and is animating the pictures for the show. Yolanda del Valle-Buetefuer takes care of marketing and costume making.
The main focus of the CWG is to do our part to foster kindness, compassion and connection within communities and emotional resilience. We achieve this through evidence based education, holistic treatments, group work, workshops, events and retreats. Anything that brings people together and closer to emotional and physical wellness.
Sarah’s grand vision has been slowly maintained and cultivated in the background for supporting young children to become more mindful, self aware and kind to themselves and others. Stories, songs, dances and meditations have been dreamed up which take children and their caregivers down a path of self discovery and well being through a frog named Ginger.
‘Give me a child until they’re 7 and I’ll show you the adult’, says Sarah. ‘They’re our future. Compassion, powerful creation, emotional resilience and self regulation are vital for the survival of our planet. It’s not rocket science but familiar habits need to be created and supported. ‘Kids already know all this, it’s us adults that need to get on the same page! It’s also clear from my research with parents and teachers and University studies, that it’s wanted and needed.’
And now Ginger is set to star in her own musical theatre show with puppets.
In April 2021, the CWG received the bulk of the funding for the show from the NSW Government’s Bushfire Community Recovery and Resilience Fund.
These funds will go towards three stage shows and workshops for bushfire affected communities in Southern NSW. Currently puppets are being created, actors are learning scripts, costumes are being designed and made, and images are being painted that will be projected onto a screen for the shows.
Ginger the Frog opens with two preview’s at Wallaga Lake and Cobargo, Narooma Golf Club on July 11, the big show and Kids Expo at Bega Civic Centre on Sat, 17th July over a morning and afternoon session.
Up until this point the CWG team and its supporters have contributed a significant amount of voluntary hours to all of our projects so far. They would especially like to acknowledge and thank the Cobargo Community Bushfire Recovery Fund, St Vincent de Paul, the Australia Council of the Arts, The Hawkesbury City Council, Australian Government Regional Arts Fund, Coordinare, Australian Red Cross and Eurobodalla Shire Council for their grants. Also Arndell College for understanding Ginger and the importance of emotional wellbeing for young kids in schools and donating their fundraising efforts to the Ginger the Frog schools program.
There’s never been a more critical time to develop programs specifically geared to support children’s wellbeing through crisis and beyond.
For more information regarding the show ‘My Super Power’, the kids wellbeing expo go to www.gingerthefrog.com
We hope to see you there.
The Cobargo Wellness Group recognises and pays respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, their ancestors, the Elders past, present and emerging from the different First Nations across this country. We acknowledge that we are based on Yuin Country on the Sapphire Coast, NSW
Our organisation is passionate about wellbeing, creativity, art and community development and we admire and pay respect to the importance of connection to land, culture, spirituality, family and community for the wellbeing of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. We acknowledge and know deeply that this Land was never ceded.