Journal o f Indigenous Policy Issue 2, 2002

SUSTAINING COMMUNITY PROGRAMS IN FUNDING CRISIS: A WOMEN’S COUNCIL EXPERIENCE.

MARY ANDERSON*

The Pitjanjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Women’s Council was formed in 1980. The idea for a women’s organisation arose from the South Australian Land Rights struggle in the late 1970s. During consultations over land rights the women felt that their needs were not being addressed so they established their own organisation. The NPY Women’s Council region covers a vast and remote region of Central Australia (350,000 square kilometres) and crosses the borders of South Australia, West Australia and the . Anangu, or Yamangu (Aboriginal people) from the region, speak a number of dialects known as the group including Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra, Ngaatjatjarra, and . For most people, English is a second or third language if it is spoken at all. Anangu living on the Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunyjatjara lands share strong cultural and family affiliations. There are 26 communities in this area and many homelands. Some communities are small, with just a few families, while others can have up to 500 residents. Many communities have only basic services - a community office, store, garage, clinic and primary school; some have additional art and craft centres, aged care programs, pre school centres and recreation halls. Communities are separated from each other by considerable distances and are mostly a day’s drive or more from the nearest towns. Roads are corrugated dirt, and living conditions are generally poor. We have significant and complex social, economic and health issues in our region. In the last few years the NPY Women’s Council has focussed on delivering services to communities in an effort to improve the well being of Anangujn this area. These include health, cultural and community services to more than 6000 men, women and children. It ensures the services are culturally appropriate and directed by Anangu. The availability of such services assists Anangu to remain on their lands. Most projects and services require a cross border focus involving all the Council’s members; all require research and extensive consultation with and participation by Anangu. Most importantly, all the projects are directed, controlled and monitored by the NPY Women’s Council Executive. Currently we operate the following projects:

• Disability Support Project; • Physiotherapy/Allied Health Project; • Disability Employment and Participation Project;

* Support Project Officer for the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjanjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Women’s Council Aboriginal Corporation.

48 Mary Anderson

• Supported Accommodation Service; • Emotional and Social Well being Project; • Domestic Violence Service; • Nutrition Support for Young Mothers and Children Project; • Play group Project; • Aged Care Support Project on AP lands; • Aged Care Advocacy Project; • Commonwealth Respite for Carers Project; • Carer Respite Centre Project; • Federal Emergency Relief Program; • The Baskets (Tjanpi) Project; • Young Peoples’ Support Project; • Ara Iritijta Archival Project; and • Ngankari program- Full time. NPY project workers function in a harsh working environment that is difficult. Our Communities are remote and this necessitates extensive travel on bumpy, dusty and sometimes boggy roads. Many of our clients and their families have multiple problems and needs, but access only limited services and resources. Consultations are often conducted in difficult environments and can be frustrated by, among other things, bad weather and the closure of roads for the purpose of cultural business. In some instances project workers are exposed o potentially violent or threatening situations (particularly the Domestic Violence Services (DV) staff and workers who are based in remote communities). Clients or other community members may be under the influence of alcohol or petrol in high dysfunctional settings, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest Police Station. Violence is endemic in many of our communities. Most communities have no permanent police presence. In fact there are no police officers from Marla in SA to Laverton in WA - a distance of over 1300km. Every Australian citizen has rights yet Anangu have not. The NPY model of service delivery, while effective, often involves a sharp learning curve for both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal workers, regardless of their previous background, experience or training. It is a demanding environment. We are always, constantly having to justify our existence, our way of working with funding bodies. If there is one message I would like to give today and that is there must be a better way for our communities, for our organisations to receive funding for vital, urgently needed services. We find it never to be easy, in fact we wonder if it is deliberate on the part of government to make it as difficult as possible. When Anangu have an idea of how they want to do work, how they want to make life better on communities and talk to the government about it, they just come back with complicated systems for applying for money. Very often too, it is not in the way that we would like to do the work.

49 Sustaining Community Programs In Funding Crisis

I am a young woman who has fought for my people for many years and I am very sad to say today that life for my people in Central Australia is getting more difficult. We are constantly grieving for our people who die violently, often as a result of substance abuse. We often stand by with a sense of hopelessness watching our babies failing to thrive, bom with foetal alcohol syndrome. Then, when our kids start growing up, many of them turn to petrol with absolutely disastrous consequences. We have so many of our chronic petrol sniffers dead, or in wheelchairs in our region, and the numbers are growing. Kids, as young as eight, are sniffing. We don’t have high schools on our communities, we don’t have TAFE, in fact we don’t have most things that people in the cities take for granted. It is also a sad fact to tell you that the leading cause for Aboriginal women in the Northern Territory where I live is homicide. Throughout our work over the years the one thing we always say is never give up. In fact we have started to put out a newsletter for our young people’s work and called it The Never Give Up News. Despite the awful things in our lives Anangu are survivors and we try to have this optimism, our humour to keep us going. I’d just like to say a few things about the project I work on. We talk about change, but programs are always set up to fail, they are never properly funded and they fall short. Programs are always competing for funding, meaning that organizations working in the same area do not work together to combat one issue. In our program, our aim is to support every community so that they can run their own programs, where we would go in and teach them how. We can’t do that at die moment with the $70,000 that we get from OATSIH and only two people employed. Overall, employment needs to be looked at; people can’t rely on CDEP, their needs to be proper wages and proper training. Eighty five percent of our people are CDEP and welfare dependant as stated in the Tregenza report. Education is poor because our children don’t get a proper education. It all comes back to families not being able to afford a proper education for the children when the adults themselves have limited skills. It is all right for people like us, but it is also up to the people in power to always think about our grass roots. Too many people get power and forget how they got in there. They need to create better service delivery so our people can have a chance. We must do it right from the start. We therefore think it is timely to have this conference to think about better ways to form partnerships with the philanthropic and corporate worlds.

50