INDIGENOUS FORCES AT WORK PROGRAM RELEASED

Indigenous Forces at Work Proposed Tours - Friday 23 March 2012

Tour Option 1

Waltja Tjutangku Palyapayi

Waltja Tjutangku Palyapayi has operated as an Aboriginal Association in Alice Springs since 1997. Waltja’s objectives focus on providing support in areas of family and community training together with Indigenous educational programs.   Waltja also provides advocacy and assistance to the local community in areas of Aged Care and Disability Services.

Visitors to Waltja will be able to speak with program and training staff and appreciate the dedication of Waltja staff to deliver Indigenous programs including the Long Walk Program which centres on integrating healthy lifestyle and cultural identity, the Reconnect Program for Youth at Risk, the Money Management Program for financial literacy education and Childcare which operates in the APY Lands, also Waltja’s  RTO which delivers courses in Community Services, Children’s Services and Business.  Waltja also has a robust Arts and Cultural Centre where you will be able to purchase hand made goods and relax in the newly developed visitor area.

Indigenous Arts Hub Social Enterprise Visit

Visit 3 Arts Centres that use different models of social enterprise to assist in providing positive outcomes…

Around 400 artists make up Tangentyere Artists; an Alice Springs based Aboriginal owned art centre providing training and workshops as well as marketing and sales support for the artists.

The centre showcases artists with is a huge diversity in style and story, as well as medium, ranging from acrylic painting on canvas through to paintings on recycled metal objects and wooden surfaces. Seed jewellery and recycled metal jewellery is also made and sold from the art centre and the paintings range from the very traditional motifs to highly contemporary modern depictions of life.

The centre also features art from the Alice Springs Town Camps. Many wonderful stories arise out of the sometimes difficult conditions of the Town Camps for those who take the time to look and listen. This important arts movement highlights that Town Camp homes are important places in which real people live their lives, positive places, worthy of the respect that any person and their home deserves.

Ngurratjuta Artists, Many Hands Art

Ngurratjuta/ Many Hands Art Centre is Aboriginal owned and operated.

The Art Centre has been established to provide a place for Aranda Artists to come together to paint, share and learn new techniques and ideas. Marilyn Armstrong who is a prominent artists and also a Ngurratjuta board member says of the art centre:

“It’s a place where we can sit and talk together about the dream time and learn from each other”.Artists at the centre produce four specific styles of art including, watercolours, traditional dot style, naïve style and the more contemporary style paintings. The artworks tell many different stories and are completed in a variety of techniques including, intricate and subtle brush strokes, distinct and detailed dot work as well as broad and often bold freestyle use of acrylic paints and colours.

The centre currently supports over 300 artists with a special focus on encouraging the “Hermannsburg School’ style watercolour artists, who continue to paint in the tradition of their grandfather, Albert Namatjira, arguably one of Australia’s most famous artists of the 20th century. Albert Namatjira taught his children to follow in his unique style, who have since passed this knowledge on to their children, which has resonated in a legacy of watercolour artists in the Central Desert region. By continuing his legacy, these artists sustain an important piece of living history.

Many Hands is proud of its ethical work practices, and aims to return the greatest possible percentage of the sale to the artist.

 Tjanpi Desert Weavers is a not-for-profit Indigenous social enterprise of Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (NPY) Women's Council. Out of a need for meaningful and appropriate employment, NPY members created Tjanpi to enable women on the lands to earn a regular income from selling their fibre art. Tjanpi (meaning ‘grass’) supports the production and marketing of baskets, sculptures and seed jewellery made by over 400 artists from 28 remote communities across 3 states, WA, NT and SA. Aboriginal women come together on country, collect grass, sculpt and weave, sing and dance and keep culture strong whilst creating beautiful, intricate, whimsical fibre art.

Made from a combination of native desert grasses, seeds and feathers, commercially bought raffia (sometimes dyed with native plants), string and wool, Tjanpi artworks are unique, innovative and constantly evolving. Building upon a long history of working with fibre to make objects for ceremonial and daily use women have spread weaving skills across communities and today Tjanpi is a celebrated and vital part of contemporary desert culture.

Desert Peoples Centre

Tour of Desert People’s Centre, Desert Hub, Desert Knowledge Australia

The Desert People’s Centre is operated by Batchelor Institute, the Centre for Appropriate Technology and Desert Knowledge Australia. The centre operates an Outback Business Network, Social Enterprise Hub and Learning Centre with a range of training programs for remote Indigenous communities.

§   Discussion: What does the DPC do?

§   Visit and presentation ‘The Social Enterprise Hub’

§   Visit DPC Campus and presentation from Batchelor Institute and CAT re JV

§   Visit to the Solar Centre

§   Meet DPC CEO and discuss DPC background as an Indigenous initiative

Tour Option 2

Cultural Immersion walking tour

Jungala Cultural Immersion Tour exclusively for Indigenous Forces at Work conference delegates

This tours is fully guided by local aboriginal people and includes entry fees to parks and lunch.

This tour has been designed for conference delegates and is not available to the public.  Tour Guide Jungala Kriss was born in the bush with traditional midwives attending his birth.  Jungala grew up living a traditional lifestyle in the bush, following the traditions of his ancestors before him.

Jungala has worked in the tourism industry for the past 12 years and works with Aboriginal communities and outstations assisting them in sustainable economic tourism development.

Jungala believes that Aboriginal people have the skills, abilities and know how to use their own culture and values as the basis for taking control of their own destiny and creating sustainable economic development opportunities.

Welcome at the front of the hotel:

1.                    Stop at a sacred site to talk about the creation time and the stories for the local area;

2.                    Visit the Institute for Aboriginal Development (IAD) press;

3.                    Visit the Pupanya Tula Gallery and learn about the beginnings of Australia’s contemporary Indigenous Arts movement;

4.                    Walk up the mall hear the history of the town from an Indigenous perspective;

5.                    See Adelaide House, the first hospital in Alice Springs;

6.                    Walk out to Telegraph Station, with some cultural history on the way, walk the Park and hear about the impact of the Overland Telegraph and the first township;

7.                    Hear about the history of stolen generations;

8.                    Walk to the top of Trig Hill, history of the telegraph line and its impact on local Indigenous peoples;

9.                    Visit a sacred site;

10.                 Head back towards town on the other side of the river learn about traditional art forms from some of the artist at work;

11.                 Walk to Olive Pink gardens; and

12.                 Finish back to the hotel.