Mittjiwu Djaaka – caring for community
By Sally Went
International Development student Stephanie Woollard with Erica, a resident at Donydji.
This is a story of a shared vision across communities and a continent; of La Trobe University, Rotarians and Vietnam Veterans working with people of a traditional Indigenous community to offer them a future in the Australia of this century while retaining their ties to the land, language and culture. It’s a story of Australians coming together to help and to learn.
The tale begins in the early 1970s when Dr Neville White went to the remote Arnhem Land community of Donydji to undertake research for his PhD in biological anthropology.
Returning every year for the next 35 years, he learnt the people’s language and developed a deep understanding of the people, their culture, history and the many problems they faced in dealing with government policies and bureaucracies. Through this, Dr White became a loved and trusted friend of the Donydji people.
Around 6,500 Yolngu people live in North East Arnhem Land, many in remote, family-based communities on traditional lands with strong links to their religious landscape. One of these is the Donydji Homeland Centre, 650 kilometres east of Katherine.
Donydji has been free of alcohol, drugs and gambling since it was established in 1968 as a Homeland Centre by the traditional owners. The health and social problems faced by Indigenous Australians in the larger settlements and towns that feature regularly in the news are much less evident in these small communities. Here people can stay connected to their ancestral land, maintaining their language and culture.
However, with fewer than one per cent of Yolngu children completing Year 12 and unemployment rates of around eighty per cent (excluding CDEP programs), the Donydji community decided to take greater control over its destiny.
Elders told Dr White that they believed if their young people were to have a future, they needed education – and the secure and familiar environment of the homeland was by far the best place to provide it.
They also believed that with the right combination of skills, education and infrastructure, the community would be better equipped to straddle two cultures – living traditionally on their homeland while creating an economically sustainable community.
In 1975 a school was established by a Yolngu local. Although not a trained teacher, he was eager to start teaching children how to read and write in English. The school was a tarpaulin over poles; writing was taught with charcoal on bark. It closed aft er a year because the Northern Territory government refused to recognise it or its community teacher as it wasn’t teaching the NT education curriculum.
Through Dr White’s advocacy, Rotary clubs became aware of the Donydji community’s need for a proper school. With the support of Rotary and donations from philanthropic foundations the first school building was completed in 2003.
Return to ancestral lands
Now, families who had moved to educate their children were able to return to their ancestral land. For the first time, the Northern Territory government provided a visiting teacher, and thirty seven children enrolled in the school. Away from the dysfunction and disharmony of the larger settlements, the families were safer and healthier; the self-esteem of the community began to rise.
Following the success of the school, the next challenge was to give young men the skills to find work. More money was raised by Rotary. In 2005 Dr White returned to build a workshop through the volunteer work of local Yolngu men and veterans who served with him in the Vietnam War. Fitted out with donated tools and equipment, young men could now learn a range of trades.
With the school and workshop complete, the vision of the community elders was coming to fruition. But the only solid buildings were educational ones. Families still lived in third-world conditions under corrugated iron.
Rotary continued fund raising, and in 2008 accommodation was built for three families. The elders drew pictures for Dr White of how the houses should be designed to suit the climate and their traditional lifestyle – with outdoor kitchens, large verandas and separate ablution blocks. Architects drew up plans in keeping with traditional values. Solar electricity was provided to all homes, and ablution blocks were fitted with solar hot water systems, making it easier to clean bedding and utensils, further reducing infections.
But the original caravan from which Dr White began this work still stands.
Sally Went is co-ordinator of the University’s Donydji links. This is an edited version of a newsletter prepared for the Rotary Club of Melbourne Inc to promote the project to philanthropic organisations.