Ganyu Issue 8, December 2015

Hello <<First Name>>
The action doesn't stop across our network during the Christmas season, with a very busy time for our retail operations. In this issue, you will hear about our successful baby competition, devastating floods in the Nauiyu community, some of the great projects undertaken by women from our Galiwin'ku, Ramingining and Milingimbi CDP programs, as well as our sponsored Wanderers Womens football team doing well. We also provide an update on the building of our new store at Buthan on Elcho Island. At Milingimbi CDP, our participants fixed up bikes for kids for Christmas, and took part in a clean up day. You can also view highlights from the Milingimbi festival dance performances. Finally, our board wishes everyone a Merry Christmas and festive season.

ALPA Cutest Baby Christmas Competition
The ALPA Facebook page hosted a cutest baby photo competition, with an outstanding response from community members. Images can be viewed on the ALPA Facebook Page.
There was huge interest from the Facebook audience, with engagement with 220,515 people over the week of the competition, that's more than the population of the NT! The winning three babies above received ALPA foodcards of $1000, $500 and $250 to help them celebrate Christmas with their families. Thanks to all those who participated in this event.

Galiwin'ku CDP Women Painting up a storm
Women from Galiwin’ku CDP have been engaged in paid work, painting new houses at Galiwin’ku. The women really enjoyed this work and completed it ahead of schedule. Well done ladies, and bring on more painting work!

Building Buthan Store
This recent picture shows progress on building of our new ALPA store at Buthan on Elcho Island. The floor and structural steel are completed, and the roof is also completed now. This new store has been a long time in the planning and will be greatly appreciated by residents of the new Buthan suburb at Galiwin'ku when it is completed early next year.

"Birrk Ngu" Lady Tradies Team kicking goals at Galiwin'ku
This dynamic group of Yolngu ladies at Galiwin'ku have been doing some amazing work around the ALPA Birrk Birrk CDP Centre creating beautiful landscape gardens and installing drains to help control water run off for the wet season.
The ladies have developed their skills so fast and so well that some of them will be soon taking up jobs as part of the Galiwin'ku Housing Construction Project. Next year they will also be developing carpentry skills with the help of Swinburne University's Trades Training team. These ladies are an absolute inspiration and we are all so proud of them - Manymak Djama!

Lady Tradies at Ramingining
As part of our Lady Tradies program delivered by John Wallace of Swinburne University at Ramingining CDP, Kathy Gonun made a beautiful lilac coffee table for her house. These women are learning skills in furniture making and household maintenance, building their capacity to fix things around the community. Great to see sisters doing it for themselves!

Milingimbi Market
The women at Milingimbi CDP have been hard at work creating a range of necklaces, jewellery, cushion covers and bags for sale at a market stall at Milingimbi. Created just in time for Christmas, the proceeds from the sales went towards providing breakfasts for Milingibi CDP participants.

Nauiyu Community Flooding
About 200 residents of the Nauiyu community were evacuated by helicopter to Darwin on Sunday 27 December, after spending the night surrounded by major flooding. Our thoughts are with the community at this difficult time.

ALPA Retail Operations Manager Rob Mitchell & Store Manager Mark Peters flew into Nauiyu on the 28th December to make a first hand, on the ground assessment of the flood situation. A huge evacuation effort has taken place over the last couple of days and it has been a very successful operation. Helicopters and an assortment of boats worked in a coordinated effort to safely bring residents out of danger. We are awaiting reports on the status of the river....hoping for everybody's sake that the waters will start to recede soon!

The store remains closed but dry at this stage and the Nauiyu store management team of Mark and Gail Peters have done a magnificent job of keeping the store safe and preparing for the worst. Well done Mark and Gail! ALPA advises everyone still in Nauiyu and surrounding districts to Stay Safe.

Wanderers Womens Football team charging towards the finals
The Wanderers Women NTFL team proudly sponsored by ALPA are currently in second place on the ladder. They have had some fantastic wins including a 130 - 0 victory. With only three rounds to play before the finals, the team is well placed to be one of the top contenders for the Grand Final. Great work by all the team!

Palm Island Economic Development
During the month, ALPA / Island & Cape chairman Djiniyini Gondarra, CEO Alastair King and GM Operations Kim Reynolds met with Palm Island Mayor Alf Lacey, CEO Ross Norman and Councillors to discuss economic development opportunities on Palm Island.

Bikes for Christmas
The Men at Milingimbi CDP fixed a large amount of broken bikes found on the community and gave them away to local kids for Christmas. The crew are also planning to build a BMX track for the kids to create a great activity for local kids. Fantastic work giving back to the community.

Milingimbi Clean Up Day
ALPA CDP workers joined with East Arnhem Regional Council staff for a cleanup Milingimbi day. The day was a great success with lots of rubbish collected. The participants celebrated their success with a barbecue the following day.

Milingimbi Festival Dancing Highlights Video released
The Gatjirrk Milingimbi Festival, held in October was again a celebration of local music and dance. This video shows highlights from the dancing performances during the festival. Subscibe to our youtube channel to hear about more videos. The festival was sponsored by ALPA and East Arnhem Regional Council, and organised by the Jimmy Little Foundation. View Video

Merry Christmas from the ALPA Board
On behalf of the ALPA Board, we hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a great break over the New Year period. Thankyou all for your support throughout the year and we look forward to an exciting New year ahead.