Connected. Inspired. Informed. These are some of the emotions stirred within me after a couple of days spent in Alice Springs (Mparntwe) and on the traditional lands of the Doolan family with Children’s Ground, a not-for-profit within our M-POWERed Collective.
Children’s Ground is an educational and community building organisation with a bold vision to enable First Nations children to walk and to thrive in two worlds. It’s a safe space. It’s an approach that recognises that a child’s education can’t be separated from its health, its community and its culture. And it’s a way of doing and being that acknowledges the vast wisdom and sophistication of First Nations knowledge systems and language. Working with children from early childhood, the Children’s Ground ethos is to develop the whole child - starting with maternal health and good nutrition practices, to delivering bilingual and culturally informed education on Country.
At M-POWER, we want to help turn the tide for First Nations women who suffer rates of domestic violence, maternal mortality and incarceration that are well ahead of the Australian national averages. Children’s Ground is about early intervention and about building communities that are safe, healthy and inclusive. It’s a model that makes intuitive and academic sense but really needs to be experienced to be truly understood and appreciated.
This was my first trip to Alice Springs. It’s a place so unlike any Australian city I had to keep reminding myself I was still in the same country. It felt bleak. Desolate. Somehow the whole place feels apprehensive, even vigilant.
As we drove out of town, travelling a few hours on red dirt roads, bordered by scrubby bush I felt my shoulders drop. As the WIFI signal sputtered, my brain relaxed. Arriving at our campsite, within the sandy belly of the Ross River we were greeted by no less than six families, from the Elders to the kids, all visibly excited to be back on the country where they belong.
This trip, made possible by the well-heeled visitors from Melbourne and Sydney, isn’t one that families get to do often. It’s a logistical feat requiring a four-wheel drive, fuel, equipment, water and the rest. All well beyond the means of people who might be lucky to count one among a family group as employed. But the smiles on their faces, the unbridled joy at being home was unmistakable.
We were greeted warmly by the traditional owner, a woman whose tiny stature belies her enormous talent as an artist, a linguist and a storyteller.
From then on time seemed to slow down until it became irrelevant. We simply were. The kids did what happy kids do - raced around chasing each other, explored the terrain coming back with lizards and flowers. They read books, and sang songs in both English and Arrernte, simple songs but songs that help ground their cultural identity like “B-B bumble bee, can you say your skin name for me?” The women cooked, foraged for bush medicine, talked. The men set fires, talked amongst themselves and moved about invisibly doing things to keep camp running. The elders sat in circle and observed, like the sturdy pole around which the merry-go-round swings.
As it always was.
As the day wore on and the sky burned orange the stories flowed. Of these ancestral lands and the complex model of kinship that flows from that. Of the yearning for the language that has held the wisdom of generations before and the fear that it will be lost. Of loss and sadness. But also of hope and pride. Our host, softly spoken and wheelchair bound, told a story about the creation of the Ross River, a tale of seven sisters who escaped a man trying to claim them all as his wives by ascending to the heavens and becoming stars. Nobody breathed.
We slept in swags under an impossibly vast sky.
On a walk the next morning we heard from a young man whose life had been turned around by the sense of purpose and belonging he found at Children’s Ground. He was on track to become just another statistic. A young person spat out of the justice system, incarcerated, lost. Instead he found a place where he could learn. Feel needed. Be inspired by visible male role models to be something more than he could have imagined. In him I saw both the evidence and the future of the Children’s Ground approach. Not a band aid for a broken leg but a way of life that will allow First Nations kids to walk tall, strong in their language, their culture and their value in a society that has so long undervalued them.
I am changed. I know more than I did but less than I should
- Lisa Keenan
I feel inspired to incorporate the ancient knowledge systems I saw in action in my own life – to remember to listen to all voices, but especially the quietest one, and to see the whole person, not just the parts.
I also feel responsible to those I was lucky enough to meet to share what I learned. To speak up. To listen more. To help shape a world that truly values the world’s oldest continuing culture.
This is my responsibility as a privileged, immigrant, Anglo-Australian. Progress for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people starts with me and people like me.
