Young men from the Mantamaru Community-Jameson and Papulankutja Blackstone communities have travelled to the east coast to experience life outside their remote locations.
The communities in the Ngaanyatjarra lands do not have access to amenities such as dentists and dishwashers, which they were able to access for the first time on their trip.
NPY Women’s Council youth worker Michelle Crane said the trip of the nine young men was from March 29 to April 14, and was co-ordinated by three NPYWC staff members.
“So 18 months ago, I started as a youth worker on the Lands. I had previously been working in the store in Blackstone so I already had a connection with the people, the kids mainly. And when I served as a youth worker, I just decided that my dream would be to take those kids to the Gold Coast to give them experiences that most people, most Australians on the east coast get to have,” she said.
Ms Crane said to accomplish her dream she worked with the youth to make the trip their goal as well.
“So there was things like you had to attend school regularly, turn up for the youth program, or stay out of trouble, stay out of break-ins, all of that kind of thing that I set as personal goals in their head,” she said.
As a test run, Ms Crane organised two camps on country, which progressed to a trip to Yulara for a careers pathway.
“When we went there I realised that even though there’s these great opportunities offered by (Voyages Indigenous Tourism) for them . . . the gap was so huge,” she said.
“They expected them to go and do hospitality work in the kitchen or whatever, these kids have never seen a dishwasher before, never mind know how to wait a table. So my dream was then to just expose them to a world outside of community and let their potential just blossom.”
Ms Crane said a first trip to the Gold Coast took place at the end of last year with a mix of holiday activities and life lessons.
“I wanted to teach them about emotions and feelings especially because that’s one thing that we have issues with on the Lands where they didn’t know how to control their anger, or they don’t know when to speak when they’re sad or when they’re angry,” she said.
“So I wanted to regulate their emotions and we started with how they felt when they’re getting on the plane, how they’re getting off the plane and all of those things, teaching them about adrenaline without being in danger in fast cars or drinking or using drugs and alcohol.”
The youth were “positive” about their travel, and spoke to the younger children at the local school about their experience, which led to the students wanting to attend school consistently so they could also travel to the Gold Coast.
When asked how the trip was funded, Ms Crane said she received donations, selling products from Alice Springs at football matches, but Jameson community and NPY also covered $5000 each.
“For the first trip we had so much in-kind given to us, I did a lot of work trying to get donations and things gifted so we had nearly $16,000 worth of activities gifted to us, which was amazing,” she said.
Ms Crane was able to receive a grant for the second trip, which she wanted to be more educational and teaching them about “real life stuff”.
“We had a four-bedroom unit where we all stayed together in one unit where I taught them you know, wake up; we went for walks along the beach, we came back, we had breakfast in the unit, we packed dishwashers, we unpacked dishwashers, we made our beds,” she said.
“I had a little pocket money everywhere so there was $10 under the bed and if someone decided they wanted to take the rubbish out, $10 next to the dishwasher, that kind of pocket money scheme about working and earning money.”
The youth also went to Gold Coast sports clubs including the Titans and Suns, where they received mentoring about mental health, sport, fitness and hygiene.
Ms Crane said it was important to understand “nobody can be what they can’t see”, which meant no matter how many times she had told them that school was good, they would not listen.
“Until they went into a school where there was 3000 children sitting there studying and playing sport and mentoring smaller children. They didn’t understand it . . . and when they did see it they’re like, ‘wow, school is cool, look at all these kids at school, it must be good’,” she said.
Ms Crane said the trip also taught them about the importance of health and hygiene, and how to use certain products to take care of themselves.
“The second time we took them to the dentist for the very first time ever. We worked with Griffith University there so they all had three hours in a dental chair, which was amazing just to have a dental treatment for the first time,” she said.
“Now they just go back and now they go ‘oh, the dentist is not bad. We tell all the other kids the dentist’s not bad, if a dentist comes to the Lands, we go to it now instead of avoiding it’.”