Aboriginal Healing,
Sharing Culture |
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CHANGING COMMUNITY
"It's nice to see the infrastructure, buildings and everything here, but the main thing is building your self-esteem within you - that's the mindset that changes everything when you start to think differently. Because what's the use of having all the nice buildings, and within yourself you haven't changed?"
Elder Mary Ann Coconut |
Whole of Community Change
“Doing things with people. Not to them.”
Whole of Community Change begins with extensive community engagement, the identification of core community values and the creation of a community owned vision and blueprint. The program has evolved over the past 5 years through extensive engagement across many Cape York communities with a clear concept emerging… "that spiritual growth when aligned to economic opportunity, provides the fundamental basis for social transformation" The results are extraordinary…
Our ‘Whole of Community Change’ framework opens the door to a new leadership structure where government meets community priorities and where infrastructure and services are delivered by the community. Where the community take direct responsibility and every sector of the community is engaged, valued and has a voice. Dynamic Exchange is all about people helping each other. Corporate, government and Indigenous leaders coming together to share their skills and knowledge to create real change… Indigenous communities are reaching out to engage in the philosophy of community ownership and self determination to improve their social and economic outcomes The time is right to engage in a values based process that builds a strong mutual understanding between community, government and strategic partners. >> Read original |
Napranum Aboriginal community turns disadvantage around by boosting jobs, infrastructure [from the ABC]
The Queensland Aboriginal community of Napranum on the state's western Cape York says it is charting its own path to tackle disadvantage, with remarkable results.
Napranum has long been considered one of Queensland's most disadvantaged communities, but in just three years, it has had a big turnaround, significantly increasing jobs and infrastructure. Despite being a short drive from the wealthy mining town of Weipa, Napranum was poor and over-crowded. In 2011, the community engaged a consultant to help it develop its own 10-year vision. The community has since created at least 40 new jobs, got young people into training, and built infrastructure now owned by the community, including more than 30 homes, a new supermarket, a daycare centre and a war memorial. Elder Mary Ann Coconut has lived in Napranum for 70 years. She said she had witnessed a powerful transformation in the past few years. "For a start, with child safety, we had children in the safe house but we haven't got any children there now, so the parents are looking after their children," she said. "It's nice to see the infrastructure, buildings and everything here, but the main thing is building your self-esteem within you - that's the mindset that changes everything when you start to think differently. "Because what's the use of having all the nice buildings, and within yourself you haven't changed? "That's the big change, when you see the change in the people themselves." >> Read more |