VC’s corner
campusreview.com.au
Learning both ways
Why Australia needs to embrace
the knowledge and history
of its Indigenous people.
By Simon Maddocks
T
his past August, I found myself
again at Gulkula in northeast
Arnhem Land for the 20th
anniversary Garma Festival run by the
Yothu Yindi Foundation on the lands of
the Gumatj clans of the Yolngu.
Charles Darwin University’s engagement
with this place began more than 20
years ago with the Yunupingu family.
In the 1980s, Mandawuy Yunupingu
was involved in a community-driven
transformation of the Yirrkala School to
gain community control of the school
and its curriculum. As principal of the
Yirrkala Community Education Centre, and
working with balanda (non-Indigenous)
colleagues – some from the then Northern
Territory University – he developed a
20
governance model to explore alternative
understandings of what it meant to be
‘educated and literate’.
In 1990, he and other Yolngu leaders
formed the Yothu Yindi Foundation with
the aim of establishing a “bush university”
to facilitate the teaching of traditional
knowledge to young Yolngu and visitors
alike, but in a manner determined by Yolngu
elders, according to their traditions and
customs. Through the work and continued
support of the Yothu Yindi Foundation,
this has led to the ongoing establishment
of the Garma Cultural Studies Institute
(www.yyf.com.au), and the transformation
of the site at Gulkula to one for Yolngu
training and development, and the annual
Garma Festival.
Unlike past years, neither the prime
minister nor the Opposition leader
attended Garma this year, but the Yolngu
clans, their elders and the representatives
of many other Australian First Nations
peoples were present to engage business
leaders, educators and young Australians
in open debate, cultural exchange and
knowledge sharing.
At the opening, Yalmay Yunupingu, wife
of Mandawuy and a teacher and school
principal herself, read a Yolngu translation
of the “Statement from the Heart” in
language, followed by a reading of the
English version by actor Jack Thompson.
Yalmay has encouraged CDU’s
engagement with the Yolngu over 20 years.
Her daughter, together with a daughter
of Galarrwuy Yunupingu (current leader
of the Gumatj clans), reflected on the
instrumental leadership of their fathers, and
the aspirations held for Gulkula, for Garma
and for generational futures. In a moving
ceremony, these young women highlighted
the early engagement with CDU.
It caused me to reflect on many issues
that I can only touch on briefly here. I
should insert a caveat at this point, which
is that I am contributing another less-than-
adequately-informed European perspective
to an issue of Indigenous empowerment
and success. This worries me, as
Indigenous leadership and articulation is
needed here. But as a vice-chancellor, I
have a responsibility to try to inform myself
and others about how we can ensure