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Our Community

This section of the site provides information about the community which lives in the area covered by the RWA and REDWatch. This community covers the suburbs of Redfern, Eveleigh, Darlington and Waterloo. These suburbs are sometimes abreviated as REDW or generally as Redfern - Waterloo. Find information about the area, its community services and community resources.
About Redfern Eveleigh Darlington and Waterloo
This section aims to assist people locate information about the Redfern-Waterloo area.
Find a Local Community Service
This folder provides some different ways of locating community services in Redfern - Waterloo and surrounding areas. Not all services will show up in all the directories so if you can not find what you are looking for in one directory you may need to try the others. While organisations putting directories together try to keep them up to date this is not always possible, so check with the provider before you make arrangements based on their listings. If you know of any other directories that would be useful to have added to this site please contact mail@redwatch.org.au
Local Transport
Redfern Waterloo sits in the middle of a number of transport corridors for rail, road and bus. The problem for many is how to move to locally without having to go into the city and back out again. Here we provide some infomation on Local Transport.
Local Media
Redfern Waterloo is covered by a free monthly local community newspaper "The South Sydney Herald" as well as a commercial weekly free paper "Central". We carry stories from these sources in the REDWatch media Articles about Redfern Waterloo. Full versions of the papers aree available on their websites.
Local Business
This section contains details about business issues in Redfern Waterloo. The area has its own Redfern Waterloo Chamber of Commerce which is the primary representative of the local business community.
Translation Tools
People from many backgrounds live in Redfern Waterloo and, apart from English, the most common languages spoken at home are Russian, Chinese, Greek, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese. Other important languages are Portuguese, Turkish, Indonesian, Korean, Italian, Serbian and Tagalog. Here we have put together some web based translation tools to help get a rough translation of this or other web sites.
Parkway Proposal - a green off-road pedestrian-cycle route through Chippendale
The Parkway proposal was presented at a Chippendale Community Meeting on 2 August 2006. The Parkway is a concept plan for a green off-road pedestrian-cycle route through Chippendale. It is a series of green links through local neighbourhoods - taking you from the City & east Darling Harbour to Alexandria, Newtown and the Australian Technology Park through Chippendale, with an east - west axis taking you from Glebe to the University of NSW. This is achieved through the recreation of green space and public domain opportunities – either through footpath extensions or dedicated off-road opportunities, reducing through traffic and prioritising pedestrian and cycle movement, where possible.
Local Human Services NGO Updates
There are a range of peak bodies (such as NCOSS) looking after the various interests of sectors of the NGO Human services however from time to time we get asked to put some NGO material of broad interest to people in Redfern Waterloo on the REDWatch website. Such information can be found in this section of the site. [For information on local human services responses to the RWA Human Services Plans see www.redwatch.org.au/RWA/humanservices ].
Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP)
Redfern has had a CDEP project for the last 20 years. It has helped many Aboriginal people get into the regular job market as well as provided opportunities for many others to contribute to their community by undertaking socially useful work in the local community. On 6 November 2006 the Federal Government announced that CDEP would cease operating in urban areas and that it would be replaced by a new scheme that would be better suited to the labour market as it is at its strongest in 30 years. The proposed changes to CDEP will impact on Redfern Waterloo and hence we have collected some information on the proposed changes and the moves by some in the community to lobby for retention of the CDEP programmes in the area.
Elections
REDWatch encourages the communities of Redfern Waterloo to use the opportunity elections offer to agitate for improved political commitment to the area and to policy changes that will beneficially impact on the areas communities. REDWatch is made up of people who support all major political parties and none - REDWatch supports no particular party. We do however encourage people to be involved in supporting the candidate and party of their choice and for debate about the areas issues including at election time.
Redfern Brand
A Redfern Brand was launched on 5th February 2011 by the NSW Premier Kristina Keneally and Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore. The brand had been developed by Frost for the Roll Up Redfern Group made up of the City of Sydney Council, The Redfern Waterloo Authority, The South Sydney Business Chamber (formally Redfern Waterloo Chamber of Commerce), REDWatch and South Sydney Rabbitohs. While REDWatch has concerns about the Brand engagement process, REDWatch has collected material about the Brand and the process used to develop it so it is readily available to the community.
Redfern Community Facebook Site
The RWA has set up a "Redfern Community" Facebook page to promote the positive developments in Redfern and the surrounding areas of Waterloo, Darlington and Eveleigh. All of the community can help promote Redfern as a welcoming place for both business and recreation. This is in line with the Welcoming Brand. If you are on Facebook you can visit the page here - and don’t forget to tell your friends!
Groundswell
GROUNDSWELL is a community empowerment process facilitated by a coalition of Redfern and Waterloo non-government agencies. It was initiated in April 2011 when a coalition of local agencies and residents met to explore ways of supporting residents facing the significant issues and changes proposed for the Redfern and Waterloo area. Here we have collected information relating to Groundswell.
Trevor Davies (1956 - 2011)
Trevor Davies was one of the founding members of REDWatch and served on the REDWatch Coordinating committee up until his sudden death on 14th June 2011. He was the long term secretary of the Darlington ALP Branch, an Elder of the South Sydney Uniting Church. co-editor of the South Sydney Herald among his very many other activities. Here we have gathered some material about Trevor's contribution to the community and some links to other information and tributes. Vale Trevor Davies.
Ross Smith (1941 - 2016)
Ross Smith was one of the founding members of REDWatch and served on the REDWatch Coordinating committee as Treasurer up until his sudden death on 4th October 2016. Ross was an active members of the ALP and active in formal and informal public tenant issues from local Waterloo Neighbourhood Advisory Board (NAB) to NSW wide tenant issues. He was active in Kings Cross as well as in Waterloo through his involvement in community centres and was well known to the very many people he assisted with tenancy and personal issues. Vale Ross Smith!
Irene Dountney (1948 - 2018)
Irene Doutney passed a way on 11th June 2018. Irene was active on the Board of The Factory and on the REDWatch Co-ord Group for many years. She served two terms on the City of Sydney Council finishing as Deputy Lord Mayor. Stories about Irene and details of a Celebration of her life will be placed into this section of the website.