Members and Directors Profiles

Who are we? What are our inspirations? What are we passionate about? Please read on......

In First Name alphabetical order...

Monika Darrington ~ Foundation Member
Shanto L. Dorcey ~ Foundation Member and Director
Surdham Pty. Ltd ~ Foundation Member
Suriya Freitag (Suha)~ Foundation Member and Director
Svargo K. Freitag ~ Foundation Member and Director

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Monika Darrington ~ Foundation Member

Monika was born 1963 in Germany, where a normal small family upbringing made her  curious about 'life out there'. One of her weaknesses became travel, the other one was an attraction to trucks and buses. Opportunity for Monika manifested; driving a truck to Nepal in a small convoy ended her studies as an industrial designer. On return to Germany she fell in love with an old bus, which became her home for the next 6 years. Different jobs and community living and sharing was normal with that kind of small budget lifestyle.

Life and it's winding roads got her to Australia in 1993 and into a 180* turn of marriage, house and 3 children. An unfamiliar nature and being more settled started her  interest in gardening and 2 more children and fathers haven't changed this. Kai (7) and Sarah (2) are living with her now and have her connected to the Kuranda Steiner School.

Why I joined Kanjini Co-Op?
It feels right. Timing is right. And somehow there was even enough money to get me started, so I couldn't resist.

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Shanto L. Dorcey ~ Foundation Member

North Queenslander by birth, lived in USA and India and has been traveling the world since 1999 giving courses “Colour and Light on the Pathways©” of Aura-Soma and the Beamer Light pen. www.auracolorlight.com

Proud Mother of two children in their 30's and Nannie to two beautiful grandsons.

Shanto says: “Australia always brings me back to my roots and my love for Mother Earth.”

Her love for the earth has shown through many of her life activities. Grew vegetables from a very young age (love to eat them too!) thanks to guidance from her father and grandfather. She then learnt to produce flower essences in USA from the garden of the earth. Shanto now works and teaches courses on Colour from Aura-Soma and the development of consciousness utilizing plant and crystal energies and the ancient wisdom of Chinese Medicine. She is now at a point in her life that she is learning all the amazing health benefits of good healthy food and how it affects the body.

Meditation and personal development have always been a key tool in her life. Shanto has lived in many communities all over the world since 1981, she finds the uniting of like minds, hearts, hands and souls makes anything possible. She now lives in the desert of Arizona, USA for the past 20 years and hopes in the future to be a more active member on the Kanjini land.

She says she will never forget the first night of camping on Kanjini near the A-frames and Emerald Creek in 2014 and the brilliant light of the stars was as if we were in a magical moment in a magical place. So few people have the opportunity to experience the light of the night skies with the light pollution now everywhere. Sitting outside with the night sky, one cannot describe what it was like but the memory will stay with her forever. Each year her visits to Kanjini deepen her bond to the members and the land. She loves coming out and getting to enjoy the beautiful land and working together with the members to move this project forward. It is such an important thing to come back to the earth and work with plants and soil - it is so grounding especially for someone that travels as much as she does.

Why I joined Kanjini Co-Op?

Having received an inheritance, I felt called to be a member of Kanjini and let the energy of money help create a community on such a rare piece of natural land with waterfalls and natural springs. Water like you have never tasted before. So pure!! I want to contribute to the Earth projects and help it be here for our children and grandchildren and that they will not lose contact with its healing energies.

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Surdham Pty Ltd ~ Foundation Member

Surdham Pty Ltd is a company owned and managed by Svargo Freitag, a Kanjini Co-Op Foundation Member and Director.

Surdham operates didjshop.com - the online retail outlet of The Didgeridoo Specialist, which has been wholesaling and exporting genuine Aboriginal made didgeridus and other Aboriginal artifact since October 1992. The Didjshop's virtual doors opened in January 2000, selling Aboriginal made didgeridoos as high quality musical instruments.

Surdham operates out of an over 200 m² shed on their own rural property - a large workshop, a big storeroom and commercial packing facilities. Surdham has enhanced their property with hundreds of flowering native trees and shrubs. The company is very proud of its ethics and environmental awareness. All electricity requirements are 100% supplied by solar power. Although mains electricity goes past the property, Surdham have opted not to use it but to produce their own electricity with solar energy. Surdham firmly believe that humanity's present overuse of fossil fuels is the biggest threat to survival on this planet. So they opted not to be part of the problem but rather to be part of the solution.

Ethics - Didjshop.com is owned and operated by non-indigenous people however they buy Aboriginal arts and crafts only from Aboriginal people, thus supporting the production of traditional artifacts by Aboriginal people. Because of the love of didjeridus, when any work is done on them it is as if each individual didgeridoo is their own. Each Didgeridoo gets handled at least 25 times in different processes to get the best possible sound out of it and to preserve and protect it.

Why I joined Kanjini Co-Op?
Surdham joined Kanjini Co-Op because it wants to support this visionary project. The fair and open legal structure of  Kanjini Co-Op and its vision of sustainability appeal to the ethical responsibilities of Surdham P/L.     

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Suriya Freitag (Suha)~ Foundation Member and Director

Born in 1985 in Far North Queensland just 20min from the Kanjini land, Suha has spent most of her life traveling around the world with her mother - Australia, America, India, England, and Europe, spending time in communities, boarding schools, and meditation retreats. From this she has an extensive understanding of what it is to live and work with people from different cultures and backgrounds.

Having spent over 6 years in community based boarding schools she has acquired a variety of techniques for conflict resolution, eating, cleaning, learning, and growing together.

Suha worked in hospitality now for around 9 years as a beautician specializing in aesthetics skin care, marketing and customer service. She has worked with alternative healing and natural skin care lines focusing on the benefits of plants for the skin and body, also some understanding of nutrition. Suha has always been someone that likes to know how the whole operation works so she has spent much time in all the departments of the spa and hotel industry to learn everything she can about what makes the business run smooth and efficiently. Spending a year doing marketing she leant about how to work with many people and bring them what they want and encourage them to work with the company she represents.

Suha has an amazing passion for learning new things and overcoming obstacles.... when she sets her mind to something then she will find a way to do it.

Why I Joined Kanjini Coop?

After hearing about if for years from my father and brother who are both members, and then spending some time on the land in 2013 I thought I would try it out. It was so nice to be out on the land and be learning something new. I look forward to living and working with a group to create new and exciting projects and businesses. Kanjini is a way for me to get back to the land and spend time with people I love.      

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Svargo K. Freitag ~ Foundation Member and Director

Born 1956 in Germany, Svargo grew up next to a farm milking cows for his morning milk and helping his parents grow most of their veggies and fruits themselves.
During the last few years of his thirteen years of schooling, Svargo was the representative for over 1000 students, a job shared with two of his best friends.

Svargo started travelling to the Mediterranean and Arabic countries during school holidays.
As a conscientious objector he worked with handicapped children, co-facilitated workshops for non-competitive games and became actively involved in the European anti-nuclear and peace movements.

After finishing his social service Svargo left Germany and travelled for years through Arab countries, India, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
Working as a freelance journalist he covered the Israel/Arab conflict, Saddam Hussein's early nuclear ambitions and the American hostage crisis in Tehran. During his travels he also studied ancient civilisations and visited archaeological sites in Syria, Jordan, Iraq ,Pakistan and India. Visiting development projects he gained theoretical and hands on experience on windmills, solar, desalination, biogas and other alternative technologies. He also lived in ashrams and communities including Auroville and Puna and had a house in the Himalayas for over one year. While in India Svargo participated in and learnt to facilitate many different types of meditation and therapy.

Svargo came to Australia in 1982 and worked on commercial farms on the Atherton Tablelands growing strawberries, peaches, mushrooms and managing a citrus and mango orchard. He also worked in the building and tourist industries.
In 1988 he bought an eleven acre property in Koah near Kuranda, built a house and a veggie garden, planted fruit trees and constructed a dam. He shared this property with friends and visitors and during the twenty years he lived there he was hardly ever alone. Despite the electricity going along two boundaries of the property, he decided to not connect, but to run the property on 100% solar electricity. In about 1992 he started a didgeridoo wholesale business and started retailing in 2000 on didjshop.com
Through this ethical business he created a global didgeridoo community consisting of thousands of members.
Svargo has three adult children (Suryia is one of them).

Why I joined Kanjini Co-Op?
I want to help create and live in Kanjini Co-Op because I am convinced that the current segregation of our society into smaller and smaller units is at the heart of humanity's problems. Living and sharing with many people makes first and foremost for more fun, but also for less work, less expenses, and a smaller environmental impact.
While I already have a fairly low carbon footprint, by joining Kanjini Co-Op I can reduce it much further.
For years I have informed politicians about and urged them to act on peak oil and climate change.
I now wish to focus on living the solutions and show that they are not just possible, but that they are an affordable, healthier, more fulfilling and more enjoyable way of life.

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