Tag Archives: 03 Getting started

The Muntjiltjarra Wurrgumu Group (MWG) was awarded Highly Commended Category B in the 2014 Indigenous Governance Awards. Here MWG members Regina Ashwin and Stacey Petterson outline how the MWG came together as a representative group as part of the Wiluna Regional Partnership Agreement. The group conducted a survey to understand what was important from a local perspective.

The Institute for Urban Indigenous Health (IUIH) was a Finalist in Category A of the 2014 Indigenous Governance Awards. Here Director of Operations and Communications Jody Currie and CEO Adrian Carson explains how the IUIH came together to create a regional solution to common goals, and some of the challenges that arose during this process.

In this clip Yiriman elders and cultural bosses John Watson and Joe Brown talk about getting their project started. Yiriman, winner of the Indigenous Governance Awards in 2012, is a youth program run by the elders of four Kimberley language groups. Culture and care for Country are used to instil young people with a sense of identity and purpose.

NPY Women’s Council chair Yanyi Bandicha and Co-ordinator Andrea Mason talk about how NPY got started and how the organisation works as a service delivery and advocacy organisation.

Western Desert Nganampa Walytja Palyantjaku Tjutaku Aboriginal Corp Inc (WDNWPT) CEO Sarah Brown and Board Director Marlene Spencer talk about getting their organisation started and why it was so important for Pintupi people to start their own service. WDNWPT was started using funds raised by a large auction of Pintupi people’s paintings at the Art Gallery of NSW which raised over $1 million dollars.

This Governance Development and Action Plan is based on a strategic planning template that was developed by Dr Ian Hughes at the Yooroang Garang: School of Indigenous Health Studies in The University of Sydney. You can customise the template to suit your own needs, doing it in chunks, or using it to create a longer-term strategic approach to your governance rebuilding

As an organisation or community leader, first explain to your members the importance and benefits of mapping the organisation’s or community’s governance assets, then you can follow these steps to map your governance assets.

1. Form a community or organisational mapping team.
2. Engage interested people at the beginning, as governance mapping also involves building governance capacity.
3. Identify and define the purpose of the governance map. Decide on the governance issues or problems that need to be addressed.
4. Identify the target audience of your governance map. This will affect what kind of information you need to collect and how you present it.
5. Decide on the most appropriate scale for the mapping project. Determine whether you will focus on:
   1. your particular local community
   2. your community and its outlying outstations or neighbourhoods
   3. two related communities
   4. two or three related groups or organisations within a wider community, or
   5. your location as a discreet settlement or as a dispersed set of groups.
6. Hold a training workshop to enhance community mapping techniques and skills. Make sure everyone involved in governance mapping takes part and that the workshop is controlled by your community or group.
7. Identify and collect relevant information from local people, as well as statistics, administration data and other sources. What you want to do may have been tried and tested already.
8. Create a physical map or series of illustrations using your data. Use Indigenous materials, photos and paintings that define the governance of your organisation and community.
9. Promote your governance map by sharing it with the community and your target audience.
10. Conduct a workshop to discuss the content of the map and to identify possible gaps, strengths and collective opportunities for building stronger governance.
11. Use the map to start practical activities that will help address any governance problems or weaknesses. Do not just stick it on an office wall.
12. Make sure people in the community and organisation take part in these practical activities and that they have ownership of the map’s information and its outcomes.
13. Recognise and respect the diversity of rights, values, ideas and opinions that exist within the community and organisation.
14. Make sure this governance mapping work is closely linked to real results that are important to the group, community and organisation.

This resource lays out some basic questions and instructions for mapping your governance history. Follow these instructions and work with your leaders, nation or community members to see how your governance history is influencing the way you work today.