Our Impact

This year, many community members raised concerns about ongoing alcohol-related violence affecting Anangu families in Mparntwe, Adelaide and Port Augusta. Young people in Mutitjulu were aware of these incidents and expressed their worry about how Anangu were being spoken about in the media.

With funding support provided by the National Indigenous Australians Agency, the Youth Service brought together young men aged 20 to 25 years old. The group went out on country for a hunting trip, which gave space for conversations to happen in a way that felt right.

During the trip, the young men shared how they were feeling: sadness, worry, shame and embarrassment were common emotions. They also talked about the importance of family members cutting back on alcohol, their own choices around staying away from drugs and alcohol, and how coming back to Mutitjulu from town can help keep them safe.

The young men had a lot to say and showed strong thinking around how these issues affect them and what helps them deal with such issues. They spoke honestly and shared ideas about what’s working for them and what’s not. The Youth Service then used ideas to help shape how the Mutitjulu Youth Program responds when working with issues around alcohol abuse and male violence.

This workshop was a powerful and important space to support young men feeling the weight of judgement, and the real struggle they face to remain strong in hard situations. This activity elevated the voices of these young people who we support to continue being active advocates in their communities and step forward into leadership and employment
opportunities with us and other services in the region. NPY Women’s Council believes and invests in our future operational workforce and that of the NPY region.

Anangu children in the child protection system have been lost between three sets of rules in the tri-state region of SA, NT and WA. Each state has its own processes and systems and there is limited communication between agencies. This system has left children moved to cities in different states, different files created for the same child across three states, and families unable to navigate the complex systems. This situation has led to families losing contact with their children and children left disconnected from family, culture and country.

This is about to change - the Tjungungkula Palyanma (Making It Happen Together) Cross-Border Hub has been created by NPY Women’s Council’s Child and Family Wellbeing Service, funded by the Department of Social Services. This will give children and their families one clear, central place to turn to when navigating the child protection system. Based at NPYWC in Mparntwe, the hub will make sure Anangu families in the NT, SA and WA find out:

• Where their children have been taken
• Who is caring for their children
• Whether Anangu kinship carers have been contacted
• When they can visit their children
• When their children will return to country

NPYWC staff will work with Territory Families, SA’s Department of Child Protection, and Communities WA to create a more responsive way of keeping children safe and allowing families to stay connected with children. The new hub offers families a central place to talk to NPYWC staff who will communicate with agencies on behalf of families.

The process supports communication across agencies, and places children’s wellbeing not bureaucracy at the centre.

This work directly supports Closing the Gap and reduces the number of children lost in the system, supports the use of kinship care, and will help children stay connected to their community, culture and country.

For children living with disability in the NPY lands, access to allied health services like speech therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy is often limited by distance and availability and living spaces that may not make it possible to receive the preferred at-home support. NPY Women’s Council has developed an approach that bridges this gap - bringing families and professionals together in Mparntwe for intensive blocks of therapy designed around each child’s NDIS goals.

These allied health intensives are more than just appointments. They are whole-family experiences. Parents and carers are supported to travel and stay with their children, because NPY Women’s Council knows that families are the most important part of a child’s journey. By being involved directly, families learn strategies, practise skills alongside therapists, and return home with the confidence to continue therapy every day.

Behind the scenes, these intensives take months of planning and coordination. Support Coordinators work to bring together multiple professionals, fund travel and accommodation, and make sure families feel safe and cared for throughout the process.

The results speak for themselves:
• Children are making measurable progress toward their NDIS goals
• Families feel more confident and skilled to support their children at home
• Therapy strategies are embedded in daily life, not left behind in the clinic
• A fun, connected environment enhances learning, comradery and discovery in families supporting children

This collaborative, family-centred model shows what’s possible when services are designed with care, cultural understanding and strong coordination. By creating space for children and families to learn together, NPY Women’s Council is bringing about lasting change. This program was a partnership between NPYWC and SA Inclusion Australia.

In 2019, NPY Women’s Council went out bush to listen. We sat with Anangu living with disability and their families and asked a simple question: what do you need?

The answer was clear. People told us that existing disability and mental health resources were not working for them. Information was too complicated, written in difficult English, mostly online, and often came from non-Aboriginal perspectives. Communities wanted to know more about issues that affect them directly — brain injury, dementia, NDIS and mental health — but in a way that felt relevant and easy to understand.

In response, an Anangu committee was formed to guide the project. Together, Tjungu developed a collection of resources that reflect community voices and priorities. These include short video clips, animations and brochures - all supported with QR codes for quick access.

The project has been very successful. Families say they feel more informed, more confident and more able to make decisions about care and services. The project has also gained national recognition — with Tjungu staff now sitting on advisory committees to ensure Aboriginal voices are shaping resources for remote communities across Australia. Thanks to its success, the Department of Social Services has extended funding, ensuring more people with disability and their carers can access the right information, in the right way. This work is breaking down misinformation, creating choice, and putting power back in the hands of families.

A new evaluation framework that supports Anangu-led projects by focusing on community priorities and cultural strengths has been developed through the Imanpa Superheroes initiative. It offers a powerful model for capturing impact in ways that reflect lived experience, cultural knowledge, and local aspirations.

The evaluation framework places Anangu voices at the centre, ensuring that evaluation is not just a technical process but a culturally respectful and empowering one.

For communities, the framework:

• Amplifies youth voices and leadership
• Strengthens cultural identity and intergenerational connection
• Builds pride, resilience, and creative expression
• Supports healing and wellbeing through storytelling and shared learning
  

The framework follows five key steps:

1. Outcome Evaluation
Assesses long-term effects such as youth empowerment, cultural pride, and community healing focusing on lasting change for Anangu families and identifies which outcomes were most meaningful and sustainable

2. Impact Evaluation
Measures medium-term outcomes like increased participation, strengthened leadership, and improved wellbeing. It tracks how the project influenced behaviour, relationships, and community connection over time.

3. Process Evaluation
Examines how the project was delivered and whether it stayed true to its cultural intent; captures participant experiences through storytelling, yarning circles, surveys, and
creative outputs; identifies effective methods and areas for improvement.

4. Monitoring and Continuous Feedback
Establishes real-time data collection and reflection mechanisms; includes regular check-ins, feedback loops, and participatory review sessions to uncover what’s working and what needs adjusting.

5. Cultural Integrity Review
Ensures all aspects of the project and evaluation uphold Anangu cultural protocols, values, and ways of knowing. Guided by women, elders and cultural advisors, this review includes language use, symbolism, and representation.

This includes:

Stakeholder Engagement and Co-Design: Involves youth, families, facilitators, and partner organisations in shaping the evaluation. It ensures inclusivity and empowerment and supports reflection on collaboration and future improvements.

Knowledge Translation and Storytelling: Focuses on how findings are shared back with the community and broader audiences. This includes creative reporting formats such as
visual storytelling, community exhibitions, digital media, and plain-language summaries that honour Indigenous ways of sharing knowledge. It also encourages reflection on which
formats were most engaging and accessible.

This framework supports learning from experience, honours community voice, and strengthens future practice through reflection, adaptation, and Anangu cultural values.
By embedding this framework into future initiatives, NPY Women’s Council reinforces its commitment to walking alongside communities and ensures that every step forward is
shaped by Anangu culture, values, and leadership - creating a foundation for sustainable, community-led change.

The Imanpa Superheroes Project was a creative, Anangu-led initiative designed to empower children and young people to take control of their own stories, thanks to funding from the Department of Social Services. Through the creation of superhero characters, participants explored and celebrated their powers - wisdom, strength, safety, courage, love, and culture - reframing how Indigenous youth are seen and, more importantly, how they see themselves. 

Workshops offered opportunities to explore the superhero theme through:

• Story development and character creation
• Learning activities focused on superfoods — traditional
  and everyday foods that build strength and wellbeing
• Discussions linking “power” to daily life, cultural
  knowledge, and identity

The process challenged negative narratives often placed on Indigenous youth, replacing them with stories of strength, pride, and possibility. Young people began to see themselves not as passive recipients of services, but as creators, leaders, and role models within their community.

When South Australia announced a Royal Commission into Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence, NPYWC knew we had to work hard to make sure the voices of Anangu women and men were heard in this enquiry. As the only specialist domestic and family violence service operating across the tri-state NPY region, we are uniquely placed to platform Anangu voices.

As a result of our advocacy and two written submissions, Commissioner Natasha Stott-Despoja decided to fly to Mparntwe specifically to meet with NPYWC directors and members, and the men of the primary prevention Uti Kulintjaku Watiku project.

The Watiku men shared stories about the work they do in their own communities to help young men grow up strong and care for their families.

The directors and members talked about the unique challenges facing Anangu women who are responding to and resisting domestic and family violence on the APY lands. This includes:

• Difficulties created by the three different administrative systems across the tri-state region in which Anangu live and travel - the borders have a big impact on the justice system but to Anangu those borders do not exist
• Challenges created by remoteness, with no safe houses for women or men on the lands and police sometimes many hundreds of kilometres away
• The need for support for men who use violence, and for young parents to help them break the cycle of violence

NPYWC also spoke powerfully about how they draw on the strengths of Anangu culture to resist and heal from domestic and family violence. Our members shared stories of how traditional ways of living kept families safe, and how taking young people out on country to reconnect with language, culture and kin can build strong families for the future.

One of our directors emphasised that any solution to domestic violence needs to be grounded in Anangu tjukurpa.

The Commissioner was visibly moved by NPYWC’s testimony. The final report of the Royal Commission quoted NPYWC multiple times and made several recommendations specific to the APY lands, such as supported accommodation for both men and women and increased investment in programs for men. NPYWC calls on the South Australian government to act on these recommendations and work with us to increase the safety of Anangu women and children.

The Yuu Group is a special project led by four Anangu women who have been working together for years, creating innovative ways to use the strength of Anangu culture to resist domestic and family violence. Below is a collaborative tjanpi artwork they created which tells the story of how Anangu lived in the past, when the women were children, with families sleeping in a windbreak – a yuu. The scene illustrates that, without a yuu, a fi re can grow out of control. The work that the Yuu Group does calls community to act like a windbreak, to keep the fire under control and protect families.

“We created a scene from traditional times, the times when people had strong protection in the form of windbreak. These two people are strong and looking after their children really well and they have the right size fire. These two in the past, they lived without violence. With that small fi re they lived well and they looked after their children well. Now-days we are all surrounded by violence. The fire has become huge. When the fi re burns too high, the protective windbreak is burnt. That is what violence is. This is what we made to express our thinking and feeling about this. If you have the right size small fi re, that’s the right way to live when you are looking after all the members of the family and it is a good life. That small, low burning fi re is the right help that young people need. So, if you have the right thinking, strong, good thinking, you understand things and you keep that fi re the right small size then there will be no violence and you’ll live together looking after those children and all the other extended family members.”
- Yuu Group member

Funding support was provided by the Department of Human Services, the Department of Social Services, and the Paul Ramsay Foundation.

The National Voice for our Children is an initiative by the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) that seeks to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people are meaningfully involved in shaping the policies and programs that affect their lives now and into the future.

NPY Women’s Council has supported this initiative by preparing a formal submission to SNAICC based on feedback from our directors around the priority of centring young people in advocacy and decriminalising the dominant narratives that surround them.

The submission will contribute to the development of the Youth Voice framework by highlighting the specific challenges faced by young people from the NPY region. These include systemic barriers to participation in regional and national decision-making forums, which too often result in their voices being overlooked.

Featured in our submission was our Child and Family Wellbeing Program’s Superheroes project as a case study. This project showcases creative and culturally relevant ways to amplify the voices of young people, empowering them to lead conversations around issues that matter to them.

SNAICC has recognised the value of this approach and plans to draw on the framing of the case study in designing a Youth Voice model that reflects the lived experiences of Anangu young people and strengthens the connection between policy development and positive outcomes.

The Kungka Education Advocacy Project, funded by The National Indigenous Australians Agency, supports young Anangu women to build confidence, develop leadership skills, and amplify their voices. Currently active in Kaltjiti and Pukatja (APY lands, South Australia), the project delivers workshops and camps that create safe spaces for young women to grow their agency and speak out on issues that matter to them, including alternative pathways to education and employment.

A key initiative this year is the development of a storytelling piece featuring Azaria Foster, senior Anangu Youth Development Officer and NPY Women's Council director. The short film follows Azaria's journey as a young leader, highlighting her role in empowering other young women to "speak up strong" and take on leadership roles in their own communities. Filmed on Azaria's family country in Irrunytju, Western Australia, the project also highlights the importance of intergenerational knowledge sharing. Azaria's grandmother was one of the early works at NPY Women's Council, and the film honours this legacy. As Azaria shared, "I was using my voice, I wasn't shame because that's what my grandmother taught me".

Once completed, the film will be integrated into Kungka's Advocacy Workshops as a central resource to inspire and encourage young women. These resources also contribute to an organisation-wide focus on embedding evaluative storytelling to better capture our work, support data analysis, and promote sovereignty over the stories of Anangu. Azaria remind us for the year ahead: "talking to young people, you've got to have love in your heart".

While Tjanpi Desert Weavers has long held a strong presence in the Australian art market, expanding into international arenas is key to creating new income streams, enhancing artist recognition, and elevating the profile of Anangu and Yarnangu women weavers on the world stage.

This year, Tjanpi artwork travelled far beyond the NPY region. Tjanpi artwork featured at Le Festival International des Textiles Extraordinaires (France), Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters (Finland), World Expo 2025 (Japan), Echoes Unveiled: Art by Aboriginal Women from Australia (Japan) and the International Folk Art Market (Santa Fe, United States). By investing in international markets, Tjanpi is diversifying income opportunities, increasing recognition for highly skilled artists and supporting meaningful work that promotes cultural maintenance and intergenerational knowledge sharing.

Funding support was provided by the Indigenous Visual Arts Industry Support program, Creative Australia and Central Land Council.

“Santa Fe was a big market. People from every country were there. I met people from other countries. I was the only artist from Australia there. I was walking around looking at all the different art. I saw lots of artworks I had never seen before, such as big woven baskets made in a different way than we make.

I was sitting down doing a little bit of weaving, demonstrating. People were asking me what I was doing and I told them I was making a basket. People asked if any of my artworks were at the stall and I was able to show them my artworks. I was a bit nervous talking to people but people were friendly. I spoke to a radio lady for an interview, talking about Tjanpi. 

I liked looking at all of the other artworks from other countries and seeing different art, meeting people and learning about other cultures. And also telling people about where I’m from.”
- Cynthia Burke, Tjanpi Desert Weavers Arts and Culture Assistant and artist

“It was a very special experience to go overseas and to take part in the art market at IFAM in Santa Fe NM. I was very happy to see so many First Nations people from all different parts of the world in one place, sharing their art, culture, skills and knowledge and experiences as First Nations Artists. 

I am glad that I got to be a part of that trip and to be able to go over there and share with them the artworks and stories about our artists in the NPY regions and letting people know about the important work that Tjanpi Desert Weavers and NPY Women’s Council do to support First Nations people in the NPY region.”
- Veronica James, Tjanpi Desert Weavers Sales Assistant