Elders Daisy Tjuparntarri Ward and Lizzie Marrkilyi Ellis, both from the Warakurna Community, will share a membership of AJAC, formed in 2021 to provide cultural advice and guidance to the Department of Justice.
In 2020 Ms Ward was given the Department of Education Director General’s Women of Achievement Award for her passionate advocacy of quality cross-cultural remote Aboriginal education.
Dr Ellis is an educator, interpreter and internationally recognised linguist who was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Australian National University, where she has worked as a research fellow.
Both women work with the Ngaanyatjarra Lands School, for which Ms Ward is Senior Cultural and Community Liaison Officer and Ms Ellis the Cultural Curriculum Coordinator.
“We’re senior women in our communities and everybody looks up to us,” Ms Ellis said.
“We can see what are the challenges that block our young people from succeeding, living happy lives and making good choices for a positive lifestyle in the future with their young families in the Ngaanyatjarra Lands,” she said.
“That’s why we’ve joined the AJAC committee, so we can help find solutions.”
The Ngaanyatjarra Lands cover about 250,000 square kilometres of the desert region north-east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder adjoining the Northern Territory and South Australian borders.
Ms Ward said youth offending was a particular problem in their community and she believed that on-Country initiatives would help keep young people stay out of the justice system.
“Our kids’ place is in the bush, where they can be educated, where there’s many good things for them to learn for their future,” Ms Ward said.
“We need these kids occupied so they could do something better,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of ideas.”
Department of Justice Director General and AJAC Chair Dr Adam Tomison said Committee members had praised the Department’s approach in considering a shared role for the women that acknowledged the traditional transfer of cultural knowledge.
“Their joint appointment is the Department’s acknowledgment of the value of this practice and is the first time a WA public sector agency has taken this Aboriginal-led approach to advisory appointments,” Dr Tomison said.
