you
I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of this country the Turrbal
people and also those traditional owners in lockout River in 2002 I found myself
on a very small 10 cedar plane flying to the remote community of Lockhart River
in Cape York I was executive director leadership and culture in my State
Department of Education I was part of a small government in voi determined to
make a contribution to closing a gap of significant disadvantage in Aboriginal
communities and to get better results from the government investment we've
done our initial assessment in our offices in the capital and we were
flying in to meet with community leaders we would then fly out again develop
plans get the right people implement them this is the typical white
Australian way of helping remote indigenous communities in a fly-in
fly-out solution model it's usually outside experts who decide what needs to
be addressed and how it's going to be addressed and when it's going to be
implemented and they fly in and out of the community I thought I was well
prepared but when we landed in the community I was absolutely shocked by
the startling poverty and disadvantage that I witnessed I could not believe
that this was Australia my country in the 21st century how could this have
been allowed to happen
community leaders weren't particularly interested in talking with us we could
have seen this as rude or just ungrateful but clearly we didn't have
the local knowledge or cultural competence to do what was needed it was
very tough going we were out of our comfort zone but a few things became
strikingly clear the idea that we could sit in our
air-conditioned city offices and develop plans to address the issues in a remote
indigenous community were crazy the idea that local leaders didn't know or care
about the challenges facing their community was arrogant the idea that
they would trust us when we walk in and say we're from the government when in
their living memory they have been disenfranchised
dislocated forced into servitude they've had their children stolen and their
wages stolen they've been punished for practicing their own culture and
speaking their own language they other inhabitants this is their country for
50,000 years and yet today they have no right to own land in their own community
the government has been the perpetrator or complicit in many of these
initiatives and so for us to walk in and say we're from the government trust us
is absolutely ludicrous and then there's the idea that the challenges in remote
indigenous communities can be addressed without long-term sincere authentic
engagement and working closely with the local community is simply wrong so what
is the result of this fly-in fly-out solution model the community ends up
more disempowered it's not their ideas their issues or their solutions often
the wrong projects are implemented and they fail because they're not community
led often this failure is then blamed on the communities and used as an excuse
not to reinvest the end result of this is that the issues and the challenges of
remote indigenous communities are put in the too hard basket
I was initially a fly-in fly-out worker after developing relationships with
community leaders they asked me to go and help them do some planning and to
stay in the community I lived there for a couple of months I
agreed I ended up staying and living there for five and a half years at that
time I was inspired by the people of Lockhart River because despite
generations of adversity in their current unbelievable hardship I could
see determination strength and pride determination to secure a better future
for their coming generations strength to carry on despite so many young deaths
and and a suicide rate double the national average and pride in themselves
and their culture I was determined to become part of the community to build on
their strengths and to work with them on their issues and by that I mean the
issues that they see as important and urgent this is not a fly-in fly-out way
of working building an authentic relationship it doesn't happen in a
couple of trips or a couple of hours or days it takes months or years I quit my
job I established the pier foundation Puuya, means heart
or life-force in Kuuku Ya’u language in the foundation we developed
a totally new way of working with the community to get results called the puia
approach turning many things on their head to the normal way of working with
Aboriginal communities as a charity we work alongside the community empowering
and working with everyday leaders to help them shape and determine and create
their own bright future two-thirds of our board members are local community
leaders our most recent endeavour, the establishment of the Kuunchi Kakana
families together centre is a great example of our pure approach in action
at a community strategic planning discussion community leaders are
unified that the earliest education was a mess and that this was critical for
the future of their children and community they asked the pure foundation
to work with them to develop a new solution so together we looked at what
they wanted and equally importantly what they didn't want what they wanted was
parents and carers involved in their children's education from birth learning
together giving children the best start to life they did not want a drop-off
childcare center they wanted a curriculum that focused on culture
independence and life skills they wanted local jobs and training not fly-in
fly-out workers it was a challenge a really big challenge to make it happen
getting funding for something new innovative and out of the box is never
easy and then there's constructing a building
in a remote community we're not even local traditional owners
can own land getting building materials to site added 30 percent cost and the
challenge associated with our roads being cut for up to six months of the
year with monsoonal rains it was a massive challenge but we did it and we
did it with the help of many people who helped us could see the pure approach
working and joined in and shared our vision now the Kuunchi Kakana Centre
opened in June 2016 our manager is an amazing local woman and young community
leader our local men played a vital role in working with elders to seek
permission to visit sacred sites to gather natural materials to create our
beautiful dancing circle and playground the day of the opening was a huge hall
of community celebration just full of joy and a great tangible demonstration
of the the success of the approach in action since the center has been built
my son has been knowing a lot of things what's right what's wrong it's not as
we're landing care for the child itself it's also for the parent first parents I
think it's a good way that we can talk about what we're going through and help
each other be there for each other I think it's a great place because we come
together so when I look back at our go-to beliefs about addressing the
issues in remote indigenous communities I know that our those go-to beliefs are
wrong fly-in fly-out solutions simply do not work the good news is there is a
solution building authentic relationships
trusting in the knowledge and wisdom of the local community and empowering them
as everyday leaders to shape and determine their own bright future the
challenge for us is whether we can make that change
you