ELIZABETH (Libby) Mourik was born in Dundee, Scotland and moved with her family to Adelaide in South Australia when she was just four years old. Libby moved to the Ayre Peninsular after she married, with a shift to Albury Wodonga sometime later and has lived in Wooragee for five years.
What did you do in your career?
I taught art and then language, literacy and numeracy. Originally, I was the only art teacher at Penola High School in South Australia, later taught part–time at Port Lincoln High School, and then Ayre Peninsular TAFE before moving to North East Victoria. Being a border resident, I first taught art subjects at the Wodonga Community Centre, had a part–time teaching position at Wodonga High School with a later brief Beechworth High School appointment before a part–time job at Albury TAFE in language, literacy and numeracy that led to a full–time one.
What brought you to your last teaching role in language and literacy?
Before working at TAFE, I heard about Riverina College of Advanced Education's (now Charles Sturt University) new course in language and literacy. After gaining a graduate diploma in the discipline, I took up a position at Albury TAFE. I was the only language, literacy and numeracy teacher and with such a busy teaching portfolio, I had approval to create the first language, literacy and numeracy department. I engaged qualified staff and at retirement, I had six full–time, and around 20 part–time staff.
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What did you love about your job?
I had an interesting career at Albury TAFE and retired after 20 years as senior head teacher. I loved leading a team of intelligent, reliable and determined teaching staff, helping adults to improve their language, literacy and numeracy (LL&N) skills. LL&N is required for every subject, so we all felt privileged to help our students achieve their goals. Every day was interesting and at times challenging, but always with good humour and laughter. With wonderful staff, it was easy to love my job.
What do you do in the community?
With my husband Pieter, I am a member of Wooragee Landcare and Neighbourhood Watch. I plan to join the Beechworth U3A this year, get back into art again and join a local choir.
What's the most important current community issue for you?
Climate change. Being on the land, we are aware of the importance of growing healthy crops to feed the community. We need to develop healthy land, remove weeds, intelligently use water and try to protect the farm from the elements.
What would you do to solve, change or improve that situation?
We live in a total solar house, plant native trees and vegetation at our farm and have grown a native tree corridor for koalas and native animals in Wooragee. We also support a team of Wooragee Landcare members, restoring and regenerating projects during the year.
What's the most important current world issue for you?
Overpopulation – this is intimately linked to Climate change deterioration. We see in our own patch how much land has been consumed for new buildings, reducing productive land for food.
If the person you would most like to meet came to Indigo, who would that be and what would you show them?
My wonderful intelligent father who was born in a small village in Scotland's highland. He was a civil engineer, endured WWII and travelled to Germany after the war to assist in repairing the community. I would show him around Wooragee.
Why would you show him that?
He would be fascinated by the heritage buildings, the current architecture, and the community lifestyle.
What book are you reading?
'The Dictionary of Lost Words' by Pip Williams about the Oxford English Dictionary's beginnings.
