Our team helped transporting a group of young Aboriginal from DHALINIBUY to YILPARA (also known as Baniyala) for a footie game. Yilpara is a community of approx 150 people nestled in North East Arnhem Land of Australia. It was our first trip to this community. I knew a bit about it, but during the trip, I learnt a lot from the kids. It took us 2h drive to get there. Using the passion Young Aboriginal have for rugby and Aussie football, the event aimed at attracting the kids to Yilpara to encourage behavioural change, develop positive attitude and help them to finish school to be able to secure employment. Clontarf foundation organized the Footie event. A Teacher from Yirrkala Homelands School and myself assisted as part of the existing collaboration to render better services to people living in the homelands.
Clontarf is a Foundation that exists to promote the education, discipline, self-esteem, life skills and employment prospects of Aboriginal people. By doing so, this equips them to fully participate in the society in a meaningful way. The game was played at the airstrip. Sometimes during the game, we had to stop for the plane to land. At the end of the day, we had a meeting with all the kids who came from different homelands at the local school. We left the community late in the afternoon, drove the kids to their homeland before getting back home. It was a long and tiring day, but I was very glad to have helped. I like the fact that every day provides me with a different experience that even most of the people reading this blog know little about. Enjoy the pics
