Yuendumu infrastructure
This appendix lists Yuendumu’s main institutions and organisations following their numbering in Figure 3 (page 24), which indicates their locations within the settlement (note that number 1 indicates the location of our jilimi). This list reflects the status quo during the most concentrated fieldwork effort for this book (1998–2000). The pace of change is reflected in the addition of new programs and institutions and the collapse of others since then. In 2005, for example, Adult Education was hardly used, whereas two new programs were prolific: an addition to the Youth Program, Jaru Pirrjiridi, and the federally funded WYN Health (Willowra, Yuendumu, Nyirrpi). By 2008, other programs have contracted or grown substantially: a solar farm has been built to supply additional power next to the old diesel generator, for example, and a reshuffling of established organisations is underway as part of the Commonwealth government’s NT ‘intervention’.
Yuendumu Clinic (2) has substantially grown since first set up. It employs a District Medical Officer, four Remote Nurses, two Trainee Nurses, and up to six Aboriginal Health Workers. It flies in a general practitioner and other medical specialists on a regular basis, and the Royal Flying Doctor Service is used in emergencies. It monitors the growth and well-being of infants and children, and is open to all residents of Yuendumu.
Warlpiri Media Association (WMA) (3) was incorporated in November 1984 as an organisation concerned with Warlpiri video production, and initially also to print books for the bilingual program at the school (see below). Since then it has grown far beyond its original purpose. Today, WMA is involved in the production of local videos, as well as films now broadcasted on national television (more recently, among others, Bush Mechanics and Aboriginal Rules). This development began with the original series of Manyu-wana videos in the 1980s, a locally produced Warlpiri version of Sesame Street. They have been highly successful, screening on national television as well as in Warlpiri settlements, and took up production again in the late 1990s. WMA handles television and radio broadcasting, and operates the Broadcasting for Aboriginal Remote Communities Scheme (BRACS) at Yuendumu and surrounding settlements.
WMA also has become a watchdog organisation for the handling of and access to Warlpiri film and photographic images. To film or take photographs at Yuendumu today requires a permit by WMA, providing Warlpiri people with a tool to regulate the use of these media.
Tanami Network is housed in the same building; this is the organisation that oversees the videoconferencing facility at Yuendumu. This is used for inter-settlement video-meetings, secondary and adult education, prison links, recruitment, legal hearings, international cultural exchanges and so forth.
Also housed in the same complex is Adult Education. The main institution through which adult education at Yuendumu is conducted is Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (which has locations around the Northern Territory including at Batchelor itself, 100 kilometres south of Darwin). Instructors teach Warlpiri people periodically at Yuendumu, and Warlpiri people also regularly fly to Batchelor to attend courses.
The Youth Centre (3a) houses a disco, operated on up to four nights a week, has a game room with pool tables, videos, and Playstations, and employs a Youth Development Officer through the Commonwealth Department of Health as well as CDEP staff to organise activities, such as basketball nights, football, roller skating and so forth. It sometimes works closely with the Yuendumu Substance Misuse Program, locally called ‘Mt Theo Program’. This is a highly successful program for petrol-sniffing children and teenagers, who are taken out of the settlement to Mt Theo, an outstation about 150 kilometres to the west, where they are looked after by senior Warlpiri people until their return to Yuendumu.
The Baptist Church (4) is staffed by a Kardiya Baptist Minister and is mainly run by Yuendumu residents. Sunday services are often conducted by residents, as are baptisms and funerals. The Minister and his wife also run a small second-hand clothes store from their house. There are also three Catholic Nuns, called ‘Little Sisters’, based at Yuendumu, who have prayer meetings at their house on Sundays; and when the Pastor from Balgo (a settlement 500 kilometres to the northwest) passes through, he conducts mass there. There are also a number of Pentecostals resident at Yuendumu; however, the main enclave of Pentecostal Warlpiri people is at Nyirrpi, a settlement 150 kilometres to the south of Yuendumu. The 1996 ABS census (ABS 1998) for Yuendumu gives the following numbers for religious affiliation: 445 Baptists, 54 Lutheran, 45 Catholic, 13 Pentecostal, 7 Anglican and 47 ‘no religion or not stated’.
The so-called ‘Big Shop’ (5) is run by the Yuendumu Social Club, and is a self-serve supermarket-style store, selling food and essential items such as axes, brooms and billy cans, as well as some clothes and blankets. It operates petrol and diesel bowsers, and runs a take-away during lunchtime on weekdays. The shop operates an ‘envelope system’, in which the money from the pensions of a number of older people is held, as well as allocations for schoolchildren, from which they pick up $5 to buy lunch every weekday. The Yuendumu Social Club is community-owned, has an elected committee and the profits from the store are intended to flow back to the residents of Yuendumu. It makes donations to the school for annual ‘country visits’ (see below), as well as to the Youth Centre and often towards the expenses of mortuary rituals.
Warlukurlangu Aboriginal Artist Association (6) was founded in the mid-1980s. It provides Yuendumu artists with stretched canvas and paints and buys back the paintings, paying 50 per cent of the sale to the artist, with the other half going towards the running of the art centre. Much of the art sold through the art centre is internationally acclaimed. It is shown at many national and international exhibitions; ‘large canvas’ commissions involve the work of many artists; and performative installations of ‘ground paintings’ take place in national and international galleries.
The Yuendumu Mining Co. Garage and Store (7), locally called ‘Mining’, runs a small over-the-counter store, a petrol and a diesel bowser, and a garage. It undertakes occasional geological work, and also buys and sells bush foods.
The CDEP Office (8) is the administrative centre of the CDEP Program at Yuendumu. It administers the program, and also initiates projects and training, such as landscaping, occupational heath and safety training, welding courses and so forth. CDEP began at Yuendumu in March 1997 and has had a mixed history of success since.
The Council Office (9) houses Yuendumu Council as well as the Yuendumu Post Office and the Yuendumu Centrelink Office. The elected Council holds its meetings there, and it is the central administration of the settlement, dealing with issues such as housing and essential services. It is also the location for court sessions held at Yuendumu.
Yuendumu School (10) has grown substantially since its foundation by the first Baptist missionaries. Today there are more than 200 children enrolled for pre-school, primary, post-primary and secondary study to year 10 (the latter by correspondence). The school has thirty-nine staff including fifteen teachers, five of whom are Indigenous. It is run as a bilingual school, starting with Warlpiri as the classroom language and gradually introducing English. The bilingual program is supported by a teacher linguist and a printery which prepares teaching materials in Warlpiri. The school offers a bus pick-up service through the School Home Liaison Officer, occasional self-financed lunches are available to children, and there is an annual one-week long ‘country visit’, where children are taught by their elders in their own country about their Warlpiri heritage.
The Yuendumu Central Land Council Office (11) is the local branch of the Central Land Council, based in Alice Springs. It has one Indigenous employee whose main responsibility is to coordinate the provision of practical expertise in consultation, research and other tasks associated with the use of Aboriginal land under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act (NT) 1976 and the Native Title Act 1993, and to liaise between the Warlpiri people in the region and the head office in Alice Springs.
Yuendumu’s Old People’s Program (12) operates a meals-on-wheels program and undertakes some home-care of old people. Its administrative centre is currently housed in the Old People’s Respite Centre, a building designed by Kathy Keys in collaboration with a number of women from Yuendumu and completed in 2000, which has yet to begin operation.
The Women’s Centre (13) facilitates a number of programs, including Night Patrol, which entails patrolling the settlement and surrounds at night, to keep alcohol from being smuggled into Yuendumu (which is a ‘dry’ zone, i.e. alcohol is not permitted). Night Patrol also intervenes in alcohol-related brawls, or alerts the police to do so. It also alerts the Substance Misuse Program Coordinator if children are found sniffing petrol (see Warlpiri Media Association 1998). Yuendumu Night Patrol is one of a very few Night Patrols around the country run exclusively by women. The Women’s Centre also assists with other programs and courses, e.g. the Strong Women Strong Babies Program, sewing courses, and courses in tandem with CAT (Centre for Appropriate Technology). Both the Old People’s Program and the Childcare Centre are now independent spin-offs from the Women’s Centre.
The Childcare Centre (14) was the first licensed childcare centre in remote Central Australia and is currently fully subsidised. It is licensed for twenty-two children but usually has fewer to look after. It operates from 8.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and sometimes also in the afternoon.
Yuendumu’s Police Station (15) employs a sergeant and between two and three police, as well as one or two Indigenous police aides.
The Council Garage (16) looks after big machinery required for the grading of roads and constructions work, as well as other Council vehicles.
The Powerhouse (17) is where the generator is kept that provides Yuendumu with electricity.