Who is Firekeepers?

Firekeepers is a bunch of playful folks who care about people and the earth.

We’re a not-for-profit, incorporated organisation that wants to bring humans back to nature. Our goal is to repair the damage of separation and to build nature connected communities (that’s way more fun than it sounds, by the way).

This work is inspired by the 8 Shields mentoring model. Our programs support people to deepen their love for the natural world and to find their place in it.

Firekeepers is an inclusive, progressive organisation that will speak its mind, wear its heart on its sleeve and call out injustices. But mostly, we just play outside.

Board Members

We’re stoked to have skilled people who love nature and have put their hand up to keep the fires burning. The Firekeepers Board has implemented a holistic management strategy to guide our work.

Hannah (River) Graham

Chair Person

Hannah or River (she/her) is a public policy adviser and lawyer living, working and exploring on Wurundjeri Country by the banks of the Merri Creek.

Hannah is passionate about the power of nature and community to heal and transform our connection to land, ourselves and each other. She joined the firekeepers board in 2022 and is excited to play a part in firekeepers’ mission to bring people back to nature.

She spent her childhood roaming the rivers, forests, lakes and mountains around Naarm and beyond. She is profoundly grateful to her family for this wild education and her unquenchable love of exploring the more than human world. She is mother now to two wild, curious, luminous little humans and brings them along to village camp every chance she gets.

Amy Collard

Vice Chairperson

Amy Collard (she/her) is a Social Worker, Trauma Counsellor and Ecotherapist based in Naarm on Wurundjeri country.

Amy works cross culturally with refugees and asylum seekers, as a trauma counsellor. She has training in somatic, relational, and systemic therapies and has a passion for healing and holding communal trauma.

Amy’s work has led her on a personal journey towards deep ecology and inner rewilding. Through this, she saw a need for community building and deep nature connection to respond to mental health within her own community. She began offering deep ecology workshops through ‘Green Heart Ecotherapy’ in response to the needs of the pandemic as well as climate anxiety. Amy joins the Board excited to contribute to the type of cultural repair that Firekeepers works towards.

Nolan Bear

Treasurer

Nolan Bear (he/him) grew up in Melbourne, free to roam and with annual holidays ranging over land and sea at the Cumberland River on the Otway coast. He has had a career as an engineer in financial control of major projects, followed by retirement and part time teaching at Swinburne University. A father, grandfather, and dedicated custodian of 64 hectares of covenanted bush in Victoria’s central highlands, he has been treasurer of the Firekeepers Board since February 2018. Nolan cherishes the magical and connective times he has enjoyed while participating in and mentoring at Firekeepers Village Camps over the past 4 years. His inner child loves to come out and play when adventuring in the bush with children and fellow mentors!

When not exploring, playing and tending to the land in his custodianship, Nolan spends his time contributing to the governance of Engineers Australia, studying crystals and rocks and looking at the world from above hang gliding or paragliding.

Carissa Taylor

Secretary

Through Firekeepers Village Camps and other programs, Carissa has found a sense of community for herself and her young son. She has been inspired to enter into her own journey of deep nature connection. Since coming along to her first camp, Carissa has done training with Jon Young and the 8 Shields Institute (US) and has stepped into the role of nature connection mentor at recent village camps.

Carissa Taylor (she/her) is an early childhood educator with a focus on community and nature as foundations for children’s social and emotional wellbeing. She works in a kindergarten with 100% culturally and linguistically diverse children where she has implemented a successful bush kinder program as well as a range of other sustainability programs. She has a background in creating and offering other nature-based and sustainability-centred offerings within her community. Carissa is currently completing her final year in a Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood and Primary).

Carissa believes deeply in Firekeepers’ mission and has joined the board with a lot of enthusiasm to support the growth and sustainability of the organisation. To the role of secretary, she brings previous experience as secretary on the board of her son’s Steiner kindergarten.

Tathra Street

Board Member

Tathra Street is a leadership futurist, facilitator and consultant with a background in the sustainability sector and an environmental activist history. She was born in Australia, raised in Canada and lives with her wife and three dogs on the banks of Edgars Creek on Wurunjeri land.

Tathra has already made significant contributions to organisational building and strategic planning processes in Firekeepers and Firekeepers branch Queer Nature Connection.

Stephanie Brophy

Board member

Steph Brophy (she/her) is a wild and creative lover of all things earth, water, air and fire. She is an experienced nature connection mentor and guide into wild places of the imagination. Steph has trained in Steiner education as well as deep nature connection mentoring and has a passion for storytelling, handcrafting and play. She meets the world with compassion, integrity and a tender heart and loves to share the wonder and magic that brings her alive in wild spaces.

Steph is driven by a desire to grow in connection with the wild and to build relationship with human and more-than-human community. Alongside her work with Firekeepers, she is currently devoting her time to the foundation of an ecocentric community in northeast Victoria, learning skills in land regeneration and practising intergenerational community building and culture creation.

Steph is known by her friends to be part creature of the water. If you’re not sure where she is, you will probably find her immersed in the nearest swimming hole or diving through the ocean waves.

Tanja (TJ) Milbourne

Board Member

Values-driven and eager to make a difference, Tanja (TJ) (she/they) has worked in a range of creative and leadership roles. With skills in art, photography, administration, recruitment, mentoring, and communication and a genuine passion for connecting with others, they eagerly look forward to cultivating relationships, collaborating, creating, and nurturing community.

You might already have spied TJ with leaves in their hair, mud on their face, camera in hand to capture all the best Village Camp moments!

Program People

Firekeepers gets its spark from enthusiastic volunteers and a thriving community that co-creates amazing activities. But we’ve also got experienced folks who make the good stuff happen by developing and delivering our programs.