Grow the music – The Open Exchange
Ten years ago Lizzy Rutten was working as a surgery theatre technician in her home city of Canberra. Life changed for the thirty four year old musician when she first came to the Kimberley for a visit in 2009. She would return a further three times, staying for a...
Trust at ground zero – The Open Exchange
It was Jack Trust’s funeral. Several hundred people were filling the community hall in the East Kimberley community of Wuggubun. Many had known the Indigenous leader personally, while others had driven out bush to show solidarity and support for the Trust family,...
Being Joongara – The Culture Exchange
It was a weekday night when Giancarlo Mazzella arrived at home to find a young Gija girl sitting on his doorstep. He wasn’t to know that she had already been waiting for two hours for him. Mazzella would be asked to accompany the young girl to her auntie’s home. It...
Where to for Dwayne – Open Futures
Dwayne is a teenager from remote north-west Australia. If you find his community where it rests just outside the regional town of Kununurra and take a right at the giant crocodile that greets you with its fixed expression at the entry to the town from the Northern...
Jobs to enrich, not dis-empower – The Open Exchange
It wasn’t long ago that Prime Minister Turnbull, like other Coalition leaders before him, expressed a commitment to working with Indigenous people, not doing things to them. The design and implementation of the current Community Development Program reveals his...
Reclaiming Aspiration – Open Futures
Watching kids of the East Kimberley go about their life in community, one gets a rather uncomfortable front row seat to the wide disparity that exists between aspiration and opportunity. One might add another element into the pool, that ethereal creature: potential....
Between aspiration and opportunity – Open Futures
At first glance, it was an outdoor film night set in the yard of the local Aboriginal Corporation’s premises. Older folk were gathered in the back of the space on rows of chairs, while younger children sat cross-legged on sheets placed on the ground. The kids wanted...
Emerging leadership – The Open Exchange
After graduating from high school, Kununurra resident Natasha Short enlisted in the Australian Army Reserves. It was a decision that would ultimately shape the next twenty years of her life, during which time the young mother of two would become a highly sought after...
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