Local women put their towns on the internet map

Narrabri launches website using template made especially for rural towns

Remember Kate Schwager won the RIRDC Rural Women’s Award 2006 for NSW with this package? I am wondering if towns with enough ‘get up and go’ and concern for their area to set up a website would be interested in discussing the ‘local, living economy/sustainable business network’ idea from the US where communities support businesses and community groups contributing to a sustainable future. More and more I am seeing local communities here taking it on themselves to ‘do something’ about their future. Women in many Indigenous communities are certainly trying to do something for their towns and their children’s future. Maybe PWF could call on strong country networks plus

to ‘test the water’ as to what people in Oz think about communities working together to support sustainability – even if politicians are a bit slow off the mark? I’d love some feedback on the general idea of communities consciously supporting businesses, local environmental and cultural programs, training and employment projects with the goal of sustainability – possibly based at a local Neighbourhood House, the ‘heart of the community?? What do you think?

This article is actually about the NSW town of Narrabri which is launching Narrabri.net, the latest of a growing list of local community websites built using Kate Schwager’s Rural Towns Web Package.

Kate’s web package allows local women to run, bring together and keep up to date their own town’s many websites as a business, through advertising sales.

The website is designed to bring together all of the town’s pre-existing websites into an easy to access ‘portal’ as well as provide a means for Narrabri’s smaller groups who do not already have a website get online without having to set up their own site.

So far over 40 businesses appear on the site, which, at the request of local businesses, now includes a business directory much like an online version of the Yellow Pages.

Other towns that have used the package include:

• Hughenden
• St George (Qld),
• Wee Waa,
• Moree (NSW)
• Trangie
• Cobar.

Check out PWF article Websites for small towns make sense for more detailed info or get in touch with Kate direct:

T/F: 02 6796 7243
M: 0407 665 357
E: bkschwager@bigpond.com