Stuart Rintoul; 30/8/08
On the 23rd floor of BHP Billiton headquarters in Melbourne, a tiny clutch of Pitjantjatjara women are singing. Translated, they sing: “Listen, our land is truly beautiful; Our grandfathers and grandmothers have always lived here; Listen, it is a sacred place; Why can’t you understand this?” The women, members of Waltja Tjutangku Palyapayi, a community-based organisation working with Aboriginal families in central Australia, were among the finalists in the Indigenous Governance Awards, sponsored by BHP Billiton and Reconciliation Australia. They did not win, but their message was heard by some of the nation’s most powerful businessmen who had come to listen to stories of indigenous success, rather than failure. The two winners in the biennial awards, for organisations more and less than 10 years old, were: Warakurna Artists, from the Ngaanyatjarra lands, 330km west of Uluru; and the Traditional Credit Union, which over the past 10 years has grown to have 13,000 members in the Northern Territory with deposits of $10 million.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24264487-5013172,00.html
Tags: Aboriginal, Australia, Workers