Reeling a little bit from all the impressions, it’s good to
sit down and organise my thoughts and learnings of the past two days. I’ve travelled
from Melbourne to Alice Springs, where I’ve embarked on an adventure that I don’t
feel I can fully classify yet. So I will not yet append epithets like challenging,
rewarding, scary, or intimidating, but I’m sure some of these will turn out to
apply. And if I’m entirely honest, I am a little daunted by the tasks ahead, so
perhaps we can pencil in ‘intimidating’.
The University of Melbourne is a program partner to the Jawun organisation, and I was lucky, and very proud,
to be selected as one of six UoM secondees for 2018. Jawun, which means ‘friend’ in
the Kuku Yalanji language, works with Indigenous-led organisations in ten
regions throughout Australia, placing
employees of Australian companies or government agencies to work on projects that suit their specific skill-sets. These secondees are given the opportunity to leave their jobs
for six weeks, to learn, and use their expertise to support their host-organisation
in accomplishing their goals.
So, having
originally applied to be a secondee almost a year ago now, I finally arrived
yesterday, Sunday the 13th May, in colder-than-expected Alice Springs.
I flew in a little bit earlier than my ten fellow secondees, from Sydney,
Canberra and Brisbane. Coming from a wide range of cultural and professional
backgrounds, we’re all keen to get to know each other, but more importantly, to
learn more about our hosts and projects for the next period. My project will be
with the NPY Women’s Council, but I’ll talk more about that later.
Our first week is spent
riding the Induction-week rollercoaster, expertly captained by Fran, Jawun’s
regional director in the NPY-lands. The coming days, we will meet with the
people, the land, the organisations, the cultures and with each other.
Today we met with
some very impressive people, and even if we only been here for the shortest
possible amount of time, I am already genuinely impressed and grateful for the amount
of time that very busy people are willing to set aside to speak with us. And
selfishly, because one of my main personal goals of participating in this
program is to learn as much as I can about Australian history, I was very happy
to hear the deputy CEO of the NPY Women’s Council talk about the concept of
Njapartji Njapartji, or reciprocity.
Looking forward to hearing more. I'm sure you will learn lots and your skills, talents and personality will have a great positive impact. Lee
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