The Warlpiri Education and Training Trust

The Warlpiri* Education and Training Trust (WETT) was set up as a result of an agreement between the CLC and Tanami gold miner Newmont Mining.

Under that agreement Aboriginal people still receive royalties for mining on their land but they also receive additional money for education and community development.

The CLC and the regional Warlpiri controlled education body, Warlpiri-patu-kurlangu Jaru, then consulted the Warlpiri communities on program options.

Above: Children at Lajamanu use the new Learning Centre
Library built with WETT funds

They decided that an early childhood care and development program was one priority for their communities. This is currently being implemented in partnership with World Vision Australia.

A Warlpiri youth and media program, community education involving learning centres and secondary student support were also selected. These are all in well advanced stages of development.

Due to its outstanding success in combating substance abuse in young Warlpiri people the Warlpiri Youth Development Aboriginal Corporation (previously known as the Mt Theo - Yuendumu Substance Misuse Aboriginal Corporation ) is delivering the youth and media program across the Warlpiri region.

The Learning Centre at Lajamanu is completed and operating and a combined Early Childhood and Learning Community Centre at Willowra is still being planned.

Educator Marlkirdi Napaljarri Rose from Lajamanu in the north west of the CLC's region, sits on the WETT advisory committee with members from Willowra, Yuendumu and Nyirripi and other education stakeholders.

Above: Senior Warlpiri women with Willowra schoolchildren
on a country visit funded by WETT funds

“WETT is about using royalty money for further education and training for Warlpiri communities,” Ms Rose said.

“We have been talking about a lot of things that people have wanted to see, like a Warlpiri early childhood program, a Warlpiri youth and media program and a Warlpiri Learning Community Centre where we could go and do night school in our own community.

“There are other things we are funding which are very important, like secondary support for our children going to both our local schools and to boarding schools,” she said.

WETT will also support Warlpiri secondary students for the next three years through rewards, trips to and from boarding school, holidays away or family visits for boarding school students.

Last year Lajamanu students went to Melbourne for a school excursion.

WETT has engaged the Mt Theo Substrance Abuse Program to work on the youth media program and training has begun. In partnership with World Vision, and with some Australian Government funding, WETT has also set up an early childhood program. Access to library books and the internet are now possible through Community Learning Centres at Lajamanu.

Willowra is still in the planning stage but money has been allocated for a new building.

Ms Rose said it's important that senior Aboriginal people now get paid with a small WETT allocation for their long, and often unrecognised, contribution in schools.

She says these are projects that Warlpiri have wanted for years and the benefits of community ownership will be enormous.

“People are supportive because they want to see things happening in their communities.

“Some people don't understand what it's is all about. So we need to go in there and say ‘we're doing it for ourselves, for yapa (Warlpiri) people'. Not look at kardiya (non Aboriginal people) all the time,“ she said.

“It has taken the Government a long time to do what people have been asking for in education.

“With WETT because its yapa money, and its yapa saying ‘we want all these things happening in our community', some of it can happen now.

“I think it is really important that people come up with something like this that benefits the whole community. I think it has really helped people decide and think about how they want to spend their money.

“Education is important for Aboriginal children – it helps them become part of Warlpiri society and part of Western society, to learn to read and write in our own language as well as English,”

“Having something like WETT for our community really will make a difference to our children growing up and how they receive their education. We have community mentors involved and the programs are programs that people ask for themselves.” Ms Rose said.

Warlpiri-patu-kurlangu Jaru

WETT’s achievements would not be possible without the active participation of eight committed members of Warlpiri-patu-kurlangu Jaru, the independent Warlpiri education body.

They take part in all WETT processes and decision-making, play a central role in WETT community consultations,

WETT Early Childhood Program

Early this year CLC signed a thr e year partnership agreement with World Vision Australia to jointly design and implement WETT’s Early Childhood Program.

The international aid agency has developed a flexible program in consultation with Warlpiri communities, government and non-government agencies. It focuses on early childhood education, school readiness, play groups, parent education, nutrition, child care training, governance capacity building and cultural maintenance.

Two program workers have been hired - one of them funded by the Australian Government and the other by World Vision - and implementation has begun.

Warlpiri Learning Communities Program

Yapa(Warlpiri people) want to be part of the information economy. They want their communities to have spaces where they can access the internet, library services, a Warlpiri cultural history database and take part in training and post-compulsory education. Two such Learning Community Centres (LCC) have now started in the Tanami region. The Lajamanu LCC, staffed by local people in “real jobs”, has been fitted out in the Lajamanu Shire Council offices partly with WETT funding, and CLC is negotiating a partnership agreement with NT Libraries in relation to this project. A concept plan for an LCC building in Willowra was completed in consultation with that community. CLC is working with a community-based working group, government agencies and other interested.

* Warlpiri is the language group of Aboriginal people living in an area north west of Alice Springs and extending to the West Australian border.

Other ways in which Aboriginal people are spending mining royalty monies

 

Tanami Dialysis Support Service

Mining royalties will fund a renal dialysis unit in Yuendumu.

The unit, which will have two treatment chairs and a resident nurse, will allow renal patients from Yuendumu, Willowra, Yuelamu and Nyirrpi in Alice Springs to visit home more often and to stay longer.

The royalty association provided a quarter of a million dollars to fund the parttime manager and patient support worker currently setting up the service, as well as an initial infrastructure and operational budget.

The new service is a response to a positive feasibility study, also funded by the association. The study was commissioned by the CLC and carried out by Western Desert Nganampa Waltja Palyantjaku Tjutaku Aboriginal Corporation, an Aboriginal health organisation with experience tackling the kidney disease epidemic in Central Australia