LUMEN Winter 2019 - Flipbook - Page 7
death bed and the recall you’re going to have is
the family and friends moments, and most of
those moments are going to be when you’re
on holidays.
“When I started working in media, I found
everyone was in it for themselves and that 99
per cent of what the media portrays is negative
which really got me down, that’s also why I
started South Aussie with Cosi.
“I thought, if I can claw back half an hour, once
a week and fill it up with positivity, then that’s
half an hour less negative media,” he said.
Agriculture still runs strong in Cosi’s blood.
For the last three years, he’s been taking
Roseworthy students over to South East Asia
as part of his Cows for Cambodia charity which
he started after travelling to the region and
falling in love with the place and its people.
The charity is all about breaking the poverty
cycle through lending Cambodian families a
pregnant cow so they can keep the calf when it
arrives. Cosi’s plan is to have 1000 cows in the
program and then grow it in Botswana where he
has been trialling the same model on a smaller
scale for the past two years.
“The funny thing is, I studied agriculture, then
started in the media pretty much straight after
that, and I’ve been in it for 17 years and only
recently when I travelled to Cambodia did I
start using my ag degree with my charity there.”
Cosi always wanted a farm, now he has one.
“The irony is, I finally got my farm but it’s in
South East Asia. We’re very proud of it. We’ve
built the best cattle facility in the country and
we’re moving towards being the biggest
agriculture charity in South East Asia in the
next couple of years.”
"Giving back is addictive.
Every day I look at what I can do to
make other people’s days better."
The 2018 SA Local Hero of the Year has also
started a free-range piggery in Cambodia which
he believes will help locals make more money
per hectare than they can from rice.
In fact, there’s not much Cosi hasn’t done, but
for now, his focus in 2019 is ‘fixing’ the station
that gave him his start in radio.
“Succeeding in making this station reign again
would be euphoric. I will succeed because I
won’t let it not be successful. It’s like a fire in
my belly, a gut determination.”
ALUMNI MAGAZINE - WINTER 2019
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