Aboriginal Australia

Nidja Nyungar Boodjar Noonook Nyininy.
(This is Nyungar country; you are sitting in it.)

UPDATE:

The Institute has accepted an invitation from Aboriginal elders to become a major partner in one of the largest Aboriginal-run projects in Western Australian history. The project straddles eight major fields, with the first (Cultural Corridors) being a juvenile justice diversionary program. Seen together, the eight projects aim at nothing less than the full revival of Aboriginal people in Western Australia, as well as new forms of partnership with, and learning from, Aboriginal people by the rest of the population. Initiated within Nyoongar Western Australia, these projects have built so much momentum and excitement during the past 12 months that there are already suggestions that they ‘go Statewide’.  Stay tuned for much more information in coming issues of Living Justice, and on our website. 

The Statewide Cultural Corridors Project is one of the most important indigenous self-advancement projects in Australian history.
 
This initiative of Aboriginal elders and partner organisations works holistically across key dimensions of Aboriginal advancement: diversionary programs for Aboriginal youth offenders, vocational education and training, leadership development programs, an alternate economic base for indigenous WA, and building understanding of Aboriginal culture among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians.
 
The ERISJ is one of the principal partner organisations.  The Statewide Cultural Corridors Project secretariat is based at the ERISJ.
 
Features include:
§     Aboriginal-led
§     Cultural and language revival
§     Offender Diversion and Rehabilitation;
§     Employment and Training
§     Land Care and Indigenous Heritage and Environmental Protection and Care;
§     Tourism; and
§     Aboriginal Enterprises, including medicinal uses of plants and carbon sequestration on Aboriginal land

Our work with Aboriginal Australia includes:

•    Aboriginal Leadership Program.  Aboriginal leaders assist us to deliver a program that builds the skills of current and emerging Aboriginal leaders;

•   The Program will occupy most Tuesdays at the Institute, commencing the first week of March, 2010.  This large and exciting initiative will be unveiled on this website in March 2009;

•    Consistent with Professor Patrick Dodson’s call for an Australian ‘Post-Reconciliation Dialogue’, we bring Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people together to discuss how we might together build a new tomorrow (see also The Kimberley Institute);

•    Our Indigenous Leadership Research Project documents significant accomplishments within indigenous communities in Australia, NZ, Canada and the USA.  The intention is to record success stories, identifying ‘what is working’.  We will collect these resources to:

• disseminate ‘best practice’ developments between indigenous people;

• broaden the knowledge of policy actors of all races; and

• promote public understanding of positive parts of the journey of indigenous peoples.  This is not about a rose-coloured view of existing problems.  Rather, it is to convey that the glass is half-full as well as half-empty.

•    Awareness-raising: Through our Immersions, our advocacy and several ERISJ Certificates, we invite non-Aboriginal people to view the world through Aboriginal eyes.

Please revisit this page in coming weeks when many more details will be added.