City of Ryde’s library and City Spaces staff were recognised at the 12 December Council Meeting for outstanding achievements in winning and being highly commended at two recent prestigious award ceremonies.
City of Ryde Libraries (staff pictured above, with City of Ryde Mayor Clr Sarkis Yedelian OAM and CEO Wayne Rylands) won the Excellence in Multicultural Services Award presented by the NSW Public Libraries Association (NSWPLA) while the City Spaces team was highly commended in two categories at the Local Government NSW Excellence in the Environment Awards.
The NSWPLA award, announced in November, was given for Council’s successful Job Ready at Ryde Program.
This project provided support to people from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities in their pursuit of employment and job readiness.
The primary aim of the project was to empower CALD individuals by offering resources, services, and programs that enhance their ability to find suitable employment opportunities and become job ready.
This project aided CALD individuals in Ryde by increasing their access to resources, enhancing their language and digital literacy, improving their job search skills, fostering community engagement, building confidence, and creating networking opportunities for career development.
Library Services held 145 workshops with 2294 attendees across the skills workshop series in 2022-2023.
City of Ryde’s City Spaces team was highly commended in the categories of Behaviour Change in Waste and Innovation in Planning, Policies and Decision-Making at the Local Government NSW Excellence in the Environment Awards, held on 5 December.
The first category recognised outstanding behaviour change initiatives in waste and recycling, incorporating innovative behaviour change programs and targeted education and awareness raising or capacity building programs.
The acknowledgement was in response to Council’s Reusable Health Products Program which encouraged the City of Ryde community to reduce their footprint on the environment by transitioning to reusable health products. The program succeeded, with 71 percent of participants advising they would continue to use the reusable health products, thereby reducing waste to landfill.
The second category recognised innovation in the application of integrated environmental management and sustainability practices in planning, policies and decision making.
It applied to Council’s Urban Forest Strategy, which was developed to maximise the benefits of the City’s greening actions and to align those actions with State Government and local canopy targets. The project was based on cutting edge modelling of tree planting opportunities and capacities.
City of Ryde Mayor Clr Sarkis Yedelian OAM congratulated both teams on their notable achievements.
“Coming from a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse background myself, I know just how important the services provided by the library are,” he said. “We have five libraries with excellent staff, excellent management and our diverse local community uses them extensively.
“And I also congratulate the staff and management in our City Spaces team for their dedicated efforts in helping to make the planet a better place for our children and grandchildren.”
