Long-term priorities for Yuwaya Ngarra-li include supporting the capacity, governance, advocacy and leadership of Walgett Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs), and the redirection of government funding towards strengths-based, holistic, community-led initiatives in Walgett. The building and centring of Aboriginal community capabilities and control in Yuwaya Ngarra-li's work is a key enabler of all other projects.
Advocating for long-term change
Yuwaya Ngarra-li is committed to supporting Walgett ACCOs' ,Ìý,ÌýÌý²¹²Ô»åÌý for long-term change in Walgett.
Our work has included:
- Data and support to enable meaningful participation by Walgett ACCOs in Closing the Gap processes
- Research and policy advice to the Walgett Community College School Reference Groups
- Scoping currently available training supports for Walgett ACCO professional development
- Media training for Aboriginal leaders in Walgett
- Research to understand where government contracts and grants relating to Walgett are being allocated as a baseline and advocacy tool to enable increases in community control in coming years
- Producing resources that promote and teach the legacy, values and approaches of Walgett ACCOs
- Producing policy for Walgett ACCOs to advise NSW Parliamentary Inquiries, for example into food and water security and rural and remote health services
- Content creation training with the Australian Film TV and Radio School for Walgett ACCO staff
- Leading long-term civic pride projects, including renewing Walgett's walking tracks and interpretive signs, Walgett Cemetery upgrade and DEG commemorative garden, and conserving scarred trees.
Towards community-controlled budgeting and commissioning for better local outcomes
We have published two research and policy papers to assist public servants in meeting their Closing the Gap commitments in working with ACCOs:
- Creating Better Futures with Contracts covers how to improve access to information and participation in government procurements and grants
- Making Government Finances Make Sense for Communities covers how governments can improve information and participation around government budgeting and spending.
These papers provide insight into the experience of an ACCO trying to access information about government spending in their local community, shares case studies of positive practice in Australia and internationally and provides guidance on increasing government transparency and accountability, in line with Closing the Gap Priority Reform 4 commitments to operationalise Indigenous Data Sovereignty principles.Â
Like many Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs), the Dharriwaa Elders Group has for many years requested and advocated for more information and accountability from governments around resources allocated for their community. Through this research we have learnt that details about what funding has been committed and where it is going is difficult to identify, even for those working in government.
Moreover, despite commitments through Closing the Gap and evidence about the greater impact of Aboriginal community controlled led change for Aboriginal communities (for example, explored in the Productivity Commission’s 2024 Review of the National Agreement on Closing the Gap), priorities and resource allocation continues to happen far away from community control.
However, it does not have to be this way. Making Government Finances Make Sense for Communities also highlights positive examples in Australia and overseas of participatory budgeting or Indigenous-led commissioning (as a more holistic approach to allocating spending and making contracting decisions) as well as transparency and effective access to information about budgets or spending in place.
Through this work, the Dharriwaa Elders Group and its collaborators at ÑÇÃÀÆåÅÆ through their Yuwaya Ngarra-li partnership would like to extend an initiation to the NSW Government to work together on a community-controlled budgeting and commissioning pilot to support children and young peoples’ wellbeing in Walgett.
COVID-19 response
With support from Yuwaya Ngarra-li collaborators, the DEG were able to play a critical role in the local COVID emergency response and coordination, fundraising and securing PPE for frontline workers and community members, ensuring ongoing access to food, advocating for adequate housing for those affected, and leading community engagement and facilitating vaccination for Elders and community members in Walgett.
Ongoing initiatives include
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YN undertook research on Elders' perspectives and priorities around ageing well, which has been published in and an . With collaborator Bob Davidson, YN also produced Caring for Elders, Community and Culture, which describes DEG's aged care service, its future aspirations and recommendations around proposed changes to the Australian Government's funding of aged care services that could undermine the work of DEG and other ACCOs.
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YN is developing a customised linked administrative dataset focused on Aboriginal children and young people and their families, to enable DEG's own community-led analysis and evaluation. The dataset will include child protection, out of home care, health, housing, education, fines and criminal justice data, which will be linked and de-identified by the Centre for Health Record Linkage.
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With historian collaboration Michael Bennett, WAMS and DEG are writing their services's histories and a training resource explaining the difference between their approaches and mainstream service delivery.
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ACCOs are very effective in meeting the needs of Aboriginal people but need greater access to resources and expertise that support and enable them to do the critical work needed in communities. YN is developing a model for an ACCO Capability Support Unit that could operate state-wide and be a source of practical advice and support, providing a range of possible assistance at different levels of support and different stages that is customised according to the needs and wishes of each ACCO.