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Empowered Communities in the
West Kimberley
The West Kimberley’s Indigenous leaders, known for
their ability to harness opportunities and enterprise
to tackle social challenges, set up Empowered
Communities backbone organisation Aarnja to
facilitate a reform agenda. ‘Community first’ priorities
of children and young people were agreed, and
12 organisations have opted in.
A Kimberley Aboriginal Young Leaders program
was created in 2016, supported by a series of
Jawun secondees, to provide peer-to-peer life
skills and other support to enable young people
to make positive choices. To date, 17 participants
have developed their leadership capabilities and
confidence through the program.
In late 2016, Children in Care and Aarnja
collaborations began with the Western Australian
Government. This included a Kimberley Aboriginal
Children in Care Committee, which has developed
innovative policy proposals to address drastic over-
representation of Kimberley Aboriginal children in
state care (99% of children in Western Australian state
care in the West Kimberley are Indigenous, which is
54% of the child population)
. 45A Kimberley Aboriginal
Youth Suicide Prevention Forum in May 2017 was
attended by local leaders (including past and present
participants of Jawun’s Emerging Leaders). Both the
children in care committee and the suicide prevention
forum showcased the improved collaboration across
local organisations and with government, heralded
as a success of the strengthening Empowered
Communities agenda in West Kimberley.
Then, in mid-2017, a Dampier Peninsula Road
Working Group was created to focus on how the
$65 million road upgrade project would protect
culture, lifestyle and country, and bring economic
opportunities to improve the quality of life of
Indigenous communities connected by the road
to Broome. An extension of reform thinking in the
region, this community–government collaboration
benefits from the convening role of Empowered
Communities and is a vehicle for its priority to foster
generational change.
The vital importance of the West Kimberley’s focus
on children and young people is explained by June
Oscar AO, former CEO of Jawun partner organisation
Marninwarntikura Fitzroy Women’s Resource Centre,
and now Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social
Justice Commissioner:
Our children are our future, our community has
always known this and our ancestors have always
known this. We have to surround our children
with the world they want to live in and deserve to
live in. That is their fundamental human right.
These organisations and businesses we establish
must have children front and centre in all our
policy and business decisions. We should hold
ourselves accountable to our decisions being the
best for our children.
Over 30 Jawun secondees have supported
Empowered Communities in West Kimberley
. 46From left: Woodside secondee Shanine Ryan with Aarnja staff Divina D’Anna and Jeri Sein, 2017.
Photo: Aarnja Ltd
56 JAWUN
2017 LEARNINGS AND INSIGHTS