Mapping for Community Futures Project

This is another critical time in the history of Australia and its indigenous people, this country is tragically about to lose the last of a generation of indigenous Elders who hold vital land based knowledge.

The Project Mapping for Community Futures has been waiting for almost 2 years to receive the Australian Government grant that was applied for in late 2006 to attempt to address this critical and urgent need. The key stakeholders of this Project are Indigenous people and the Project will begin with people of Purnululu National Park, in the East Kimberley a stunning area of Western Australia. Located in a remote location where the opportunities for employment are almost non existent, the youth have almost no hope for their future and the tragedy of suicide occurs frequently. A tragedy that is not unrelated to the escalating loss of their Elders who hold the cultural strength of their communities. These Elders could and would make a difference for these youth if they were supported and resourced to do in ways that mattered.

A key aspect of this Project is to provide the youth with training in the operation of GPS so that they could, with their Elders, locate and record their cultural assets. Where the youth have been confused and distracted by the tools of a modern world, this Project aims to use those tools to reverse the current situation of youth apathy about listening to and learning from their Elders. Indeed the Project was developed as a direct response to the pleas of Elders who fear the immanent loss of this land based knowledge and their frustration at not being able to engage their youth in the ways that their Elders had for many hundreds of generations.

To insure that the outcomes for the communities are broad and sustainable a team of ‘Expert Partners’ have been assembled to provide the knowledge, resources, training and ongoing support for the project participants and to be advisors and mentors during and beyond the Project, these Partners are

• Purnululu Indigenous Community School (and the families)
• Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information – the Project Sponsor
• Department of Environment and Conservation
• Department of Indigenous Affairs
• Curtin University of Technology, Geospatial
• National Native Title Tribunal
• Landgate
• WALIS

How you can contribute

• We need computer monitors, keyboards and cords urgently
• We need stationary for training, pens, paper, etc
• We need a web developer for the project
• We would welcome volunteers (research assistants, GIS technicians, IT people)
• We would dearly love a project vehicle that could cope with rough terrain, to take kids and the Elders out to look for the cultural material

All of the contributions, the tangible assets, will be donated to the community school after the project. The school is a small independent community school, and as an isolated and remote school their wish is that this project – will put them on the map!