Remote Indigenous Youth Leadership Summit

Young Indigenous people from eight remote communities in the Northern Territory and Western Australia gathered in Darwin and Batchelor recently to talk about their leadership aspirations.

Charles Darwin University (CDU) partnered with the Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education (BIITE) to deliver a Remote Indigenous Youth Leadership Summit, which was held at the BIITE campus in Batchelor and the CDU campus in Casuarina.

More than 30 young Indigenous people took part in the summit, which focused on four themes: youth leadership and governance; education and employment pathways; connecting with communities; and language, culture and identity.

The group heard from prominent local Indigenous leaders including Charlie King and Ms Ngaree Ah Kit MLA.

The summit also involved a series of facilitated workshops about the leadership challenges and opportunities the young people faced daily. They also took part in a Youth Roundtable Discussion as part of the Indigenous Leaders Conference held in Darwin during the same week.

Rodriguez Wilson aged 19, a summit participant from Gunbalanya said he was learning about “how to be a leader and role model, and how to use that knowledge to create change in a dominant non-Indigenous society.”

Dhapanbal Yunupingu aged 35 from Yirrkala commented “the reason I am here is to learn more skills, and develop more knowledge so that I can go back to my community and show what I’ve been learning here.”

The Acting Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous Leadership at CDU Ms Wendy Ludwig said the Remote Indigenous Youth Leadership Summit provides an opportunity for Indigenous youth to form valuable networks and points of contact to assist in their development as strong and valuable members of their communities and the broader Australian community.

Young Indigenous people are often challenged by the university environment, and the summit has provided an opportunity for participants to strengthen their Indigenous identity to work through the challenges of operating in new and challenging environments. These young people are paving a bright future for themselves, their peers, families and communities - Wendy Ludwig, Acting Pro Vice-Chancellor