Village Life – Running Every Sunday Morning
A colourful and vibrant cultural precinct.
Northey Street City Farm is working closely with twelve small social enterprises through the Village Life project, providing resources, support and training to help these initiatives become sustainable in the long term.
The Village Life project centres around a colourful and vibrant cultural marketplace that provides a space for artisans, crafts-people, healers and other creative folk to sell their wares. Running in conjunction with the Northey Street City Farm weekly organic farmers’ markets, it provides locally made and ecologically sustainable products for our community.
The marketplace is open every Sunday from 8am to 12noon, and with the chai café selling delicious cakes and brekkie options, as well as lots of space for the kids to play and explore, it’s the perfect place to spend a Sunday morning.
View our Village Life photo gallery!
Social enterprises are an intrinsic part of a healthy and sustainable local economy and are by definition profit-making ventures that are designed to benefit the local community both through their activities and the investment of their profits.
It’s also hoped that the project will foster the development of a network of social enterprises across the region and provide a framework for the support of social enterprise in other community organisations.
Interested in being considered as a stallholder at the Village Life Marketplace?
At present there is a waiting list for stallholders. However, if your product is locally made and/or second-hand, or if your services support a stronger local community, please complete the expression of interest form and email it to socialenterprise@nscf.org.au.
If you’d like to find out more about the Village Life project please email the Project Coordinator at socialenterprise@nscf.org.au or phone Northey Street City Farm on 3857 8775.
The Village Life project is being implemented with the support of the Brisbane City Council Social Economy Team.
Village Life officially opened on 10am Sunday 25 July with Coucillors Geraldine Knapp and David Hinchliffe.
To find out more, please email socialenterprise@nscf.org.au or phone the City Farm office on (07) 3857 8775.
aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh, this is fantastic Northey St., lookin good, great job all
I must admit that although I support this idea in principle I felt a little sad that the unstructured, informal space of sandpit and mango tree had been taken up by commercial ventures. My kids love the rambling spaces beneath the trees and I can normally easily spot them when I need to. The tents and so forth prevented this and we could not quite relax with soychai in hand like we normally do. Ultimately I don’t think it is so family friendly, which is a shame. While I am keen to encourage the growth of this wonderful market is there another way to respond to the spatial needs?
Hi Vanessa,
The Village Life Marketplace has made the space much busier and of course there are pros and cons to this. The project is funded until the end October at which point we will look into all options and consider the feedback we’ve received to ensure that we move forward in a direction that benefits the whole community. If you’d like to share some of your thoughts for ensuring this remains a family friendly space please email me at socialenterprise@nscf.org.au. Thanks
I like the fact that the commercial ventures(small ethical businesses run by local ethical creators) are right there in the thick of the play space…as a lot of the stalls are being run by mothers it is great for us to be able to accomodate our need to earn a living with providing a fun space for our children. Not all of us have the luxury of sitting back sipping on soychais on our weekends. Even calling them commerical ventures seems a bit extreme when some of the groups are offering free circus classes and spinning lessons…I suggest the way the stalls are arranged in a large ring allows for plenty of space for play. My kids had no complaints about the new stalls and were as usual running off to climb trees and paint faces as they usually do.
I respect your opinion but can’t see why such an open space should be the reserved solely for childrens play(there are plenty of parks solely devoted to this accross Brisbane), it is a community farm afterall and can’t run without being diverse.
Fantastic photo, and I love the graphics of your new sign.