Future Shapers: Community and Culture

In 1986, when City Gym owner Billy Moore took a 15-year-old from a Mount Druitt housing commission under his wing as a work experience apprentice, he may not have imagined just how far his young protege would eventually go to champion City Gym's inclusive legacy. That teen was Billy Kokkinis, otherwise known as ‘Billy Junior’ during the many years that he worked as a trainer at City Gym alongside Moore. Today, Kokkinis is the Billy in charge at City Gym, after saving the business from closure in 2017 and rehabilitating it following several years in mismanaged decline. To honour his late mentor, who passed away in 2014, Kokkinis returned inclusivity to the heart of life at this community hub in Darlinghurst. He continues to celebrate Sydney’s vibrant LGBTQIA+ culture, just as Moore did. But Kokkinis is also building a legacy of his own, campaigning for better awareness for the mental health struggles that often go undetected, especially in young men.

Follow Billy Kokkinis here: @billy_j_kokkinis
Follow City Gym here: @citygymsydney

TransHub is ACON’s digital information and resource platform for all trans people in NSW, their loved ones, allies and health providers. It was launched on International Transgender Day of Visibility, March 31, 2020, in the early days of Sydney's first lockdown. The main drivers behind this ambitious and urgent project are Teddy Cook and Liz Duck-Chong, two out and proud transgender people. Duck-Chong is the acting manager of Trans Health Equity, having worked through various roles since starting with ACON four years ago as a peer worker in sexual health clinics. She is also a freelance writer, a podcaster (check out Let’s Do It) and a researcher in sexual health and other areas. She was the lead content writer and co-designer of the TransHub website. Cook is currently ACON’s acting director of community health and was the former manager of Trans Health Equity and has been with the organisation for about a decade.

Making new friendships and discovering community as an adult can be difficult enough under normal conditions. Throw stay-at-home orders into the mix, and isolation can be an all but unsolvable puzzle. Sometimes, however, all that’s needed to plant the flag of friendship is the smallest patch of common ground, as proved the case for Steven Shuldman. “I had just moved from New York to Sydney, arriving literally the day the border permanently shut [in March 2020]. I was new to the city and was looking for a way to make new friends,” he recalls. “I had mentioned to my boyfriend, Ross, how I missed having a social kickball league since it was a huge part of my New York life. My boyfriend knew Dave [Parsons] had played kickball at one point back in the States, so he introduced us and our conversation started right then and there.”

The result of this shared love of an obscure team sport was the creation of Emerald City Kickball. As Steven and Dave along with two more organisers – Jamarr Mills and James Edward Shields III – hatched a plan to put together a few informal games, the potential for a league that could provide a safe and galvanising way to create an inclusive community in the middle of a pandemic emerged. Within just a few months, this grassroots lockdown side hustle had grown into a major community sports group, bringing together people across a broad spectrum of lived experiences, but in particular, people from Sydney’s LGBTQIA+ community. A year on and Emerald City Kickball is now one of Sydney’s fastest-growing community sports leagues.

Follow Emerald City Kickball here: @eckickball

A Yuin-Ngarrugu descendant with connections to the Yorta-Yorta, Dja Dja Warrup, Watchabolic and Gunai language groups as well as Scottish heritage, Dwayne Bannon-Harrison has spent more than a decade helping Indigenous men regain humility & growth through the concept of 'Bring back the warrior'. Overcoming trauma in his childhood, he has since made it his life’s work to bring about healing, with a strong focus on connecting to Country for First Nations men in particular, but also the wider community.

That passion has led him towards founding the Ngaran Ngaran Culture Awareness initiative, and to hosting the Bring Back the Warrior podcast. When he's not championing Culture, he's sharing his knowledge of bush foods. You may well have tasted his handiwork through his catering outfit Mirritya Mundya Indigenous Twist, but he also shares his knowledge of Indigenous ingredients with some of the country’s most celebrated chefs, including the likes of Ben Shewry and Kylie Kwong. He’s a busy man indeed, but one who loves to sit down and yarn.

You can follow Dwayne here: @naja2407

It was a chance meeting with a young man, a fellow Indigenous queer person who had fallen on hard times, that sparked something in William Trewlynn and led him to become a founder of BlaQ Aboriginal Corporation. The organisation was established as a collective response to the identified need for strengthened visibility of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTQ+ community. Born and raised in Western Sydney, where his family moved as part of the Aboriginal Family Voluntary Resettlement Scheme, William has traditional ties to the Anēwan and Nucoorilma people of Tingha and Dunghutti people of Woolbrook NSW, out Tamworth way. Before he co-founded BlaQ in 2019, Trewlynn was already carving a path working in Aboriginal corporations and “trying to create social change for mob”.