Natural Health Heroes
For over a decade, Maddi Brown had a vision for the community space she wanted to create. In the final months of her naturopathy degree, she launched the Well Collective Studio, an expansion of her existing herbal tea business.
Growing up on the South Australian coast, Miranda Lind was always interested in living a healthy lifestyle – getting involved in surf lifesaving and eating homegrown foods. But a big influence on Miranda’s preference for natural health came from her mother’s cancer journey.
Even as a healthy yogi in the United Kingdom, Camilla Brinkworth didn’t know naturopathy existed as a career until she travelled overseas. Now, she’s a Sydney-based naturopath about to bring a new, ultra-sustainable omega oil to the Australian market.
When Tayla Gardiner told her school career advisor she was interested in natural health, the advisor didn’t offer her any options, so Tayla ventured into business entrepreneurship. But it wasn’t long before she decided to follow her intuition.
When Greta Hinder was 17, her GP diagnosed her with coeliac disease and said there wasn’t much she could do about it. Greta decided otherwise and started shopping and cooking for her family. The more she got into it, the more she wanted to study nutrition.
Suzette Mason grew up surrounded by natural health enthusiasts but never thought about naturopathy as a career. As it turned out, naturopathy brought Suzette more opportunities than she could ever have imagined.
When we last spoke, nutritionist and skin educator Jacinta Barbagallo was heading to northern Italy to support her brother competing in an international pizza competition before she settled in Bali for the winter. After the extended lockdowns in Melbourne during Covid-19, she relishes freedom.
“One of the greatest advantages of consulting 100 per cent online is that I can work from anywhere in the world and help clients worldwide,” Jacinta said.
With a background in martial arts and meditation, Millicent Matthew was bouncing around and looking for a career with purpose. They were seeing acupuncturists, who convinced them to consider studying natural medicine.
“I looked for an accredited college, and Endeavour was it in Brisbane,” they said. “I enrolled in a Bachelor of Health Science (Acupuncture) full-time and absolutely loved it!”
Darren Tremaine admits he was never into natural health. But, in his late teens, when he had exhausted all avenues with conventional medicine, he went to a naturopath about his health concerns.