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MARCH - APRIL 2017
NintiNews
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To all our partners, friends and supporters in and around Alice Springs, we warmly invite you to our final CRC-REP event to be held at the Alice Springs Town Council Function Room, 4.30–6.00 pm on 11 April 2017.

Our Chair, Professor Tom Calma, will present the final outcomes and impacts of this seven-year partnership research program. It’s not to be missed.

 
 

Please RSVP to Alicia Gigante Alicia.gigante@nintione.com.au
Refreshments will be provided. We look forward to welcoming you to this occasion.

 
     
   
     
 
This week six of Australia’s most strategic funders were recognised for their impact of their giving at the 2017 Philanthropy Australia Awards held in Melbourne.
 
These Awards celebrate innovative partnerships between grant-makers and not-for-profits, highlighting the significant achievements of projects that help solve problems of complex societal issues.
 
Ninti One congratulates the following winners of our sponsored categories:
 
  • 2017 Best Large Grant of the Year Award: The Myer Foundation (Melbourne) for ClimateWorks Australia.
 
  • 2017 Best Small Grant of the Year Award (<$50,000pa): The Funding Network (Sydney) for Manjeri, Uganda
 
  • 2017 Indigenous Philanthropy Award: Social Ventures Australia (Melbourne) for The Marnin Studio, Marninwarntikura Fitzroy Women’s Resource Centre, Western Australia


Photo: Awards presentation by Rod Reeve, Managing Director
and Alison Page, Board Member
 
 

More information about these and other awards visit: http://www.philanthropy.org.au/about-us/awards/ 

 
     
   
     
 
The Indigenous Eye Health Unit (IEHU) at the University of Melbourne invited us to present the preliminary findings of our research into the effectiveness of their Trachoma Health Promotion Program, at the Close the Gap for Vision by 2020 National Conference in March.
 
More than 100 people attended, providing a solid opportunity for discussion and strategic planning. Much interest was also shown in our unique approach of engaging Aboriginal Community Researchers to conduct field work in remote Australia to evaluate this program.
 
“The Ninti One story is an excellent example of health promotion evaluation leading to improved eye care outcomes,” said Professor Hugh Taylor from the IEHU. “We greatly look forward to the final report.”
 
The event was supported by our partners: National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, Optometry Australia, Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists and Vision 2020 Australia.
 
To discover the difference that Aboriginal Community Researchers can make to your next project in remote Australia, contact laurie.berryman@nintione.com.au.
Photo: Laurie Berryman presenting at the University of Melbourne
 
 
 
     
   
     
 

The Tacking Indigenous Smoking program is to receive continued federal government funding in an announcement by the Hon. Ken Wyatt AM, MP, Minister for Indigenous Health, that $35.2 million will be allocated to continue anti-smoking programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in regional and remote areas.

A preliminary evaluation of the Tackling Indigenous Smoking program found that it was operating effectively and using proven approaches to changing smoking behaviour.
 
“It’s important that anti-smoking programs are meaningful for Indigenous people and
changes made in recent years have ensured that only programs which are evidence based and effective are receiving grants,” Minister Wyatt said.

We’re excited and proud to be continuing our work towards closing the gap on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health through our role as the National Best Practice Unit Coordinator for this program up until June 2018.

 
   
     
   
     
 
Ninti One Board Director Professor Sharon Bell recently contributed an article to the Thought Leadership series published by Science Meets Business, a website covering news and research at the nexus between science, engineering, technology and industry.
 
The theme, ‘Collaborate or Crumble’, explored the nuts and bolts of fruitful collaboration between research and industry, a theme close to our hearts since it is precisely the foundation upon which Ninti One and the CRC-REP operate.
 
We loved reading Sharon’s views, including, “Those who are privileged to work with Indigenous communities know that collaboration based on deep respect of different ‘ways of seeing’, encoded in art, language and religion and formulated over extremely long periods of time is central to sustaining collaborative relationships. They also know that while knowledgeable individuals are involved, the knowledge is collectively owned and accessible only through well-established protocols.”

Professor Bell’s article enjoyed wide circulation, and we encourage you to take a moment to read it in full here.
 
 
 
     
   
     
 
In March, Ninti One staff travelled to Maningrida in Arnhem Land to work with Malabam Health Board to train community members in measuring change (impact assessment).
 
Participants were taught data collection processes and survey design and were immediately able to apply their knowledge by collecting information from two SCfC activities (Families as First Teachers Playgroup Assistants and the Maningrida Family Room) and the Babbarra Women’s Centre.
 
The participants used both paper and online survey tools and were excited about the immediate data analysis available through SurveyMonkey. They look forward to applying their new skills further.

Photo: Laurie Berryman
 
   
     
   
     
 
Up to 70 facilitating partners, local community board members and representatives from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet met at the Desert Knowledge Precinct in the first week of April for the first Knowledge Sharing Seminar for 2017.
 
The event provided an exciting opportunity for program representatives to share insights from their particular site, while learning about best practice service delivery from guest speakers from Suicide Story,
 Empowered Communities and Menzies School of Health Research.
 
   
     
   
     
 
Many of the science and maths programs for schools across Australia are often developed with city environments in mind. These programs don’t really suit our schools and communities in the bush. 

Questacon and Ninti One want to change this by asking Aboriginal educators from remote schools in the NT to contribute to the co-design of a program preliminarily titled 'First Makers' so that it incorporates their own school and community contexts and local knowledges.

A workshop to explore these ideas was held in Alice Springs in March. School staff and community members from three schools – Canteen Creek, Ntaria and Yirrkala – were selected to participate.

All participants, including Ninti One staff, workshopped hands-on activities from the Smart Skills outreach program, which is run by Questacon throughout regional Australia. This was followed by detailed discussions to gather local advice and ideas. The outcomes from the workshop will inform the foundations for a pilot program specifically for remote Aboriginal schools, for which Questacon will be seeking future resourcing.   
 
 
 
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“Hot” off the press is the CRC-REP’s Climate Change Adaptation and Energy Futures project’s research report Comfort and electricity use in remote Australian buildings.
 
With the soaring cost of energy in mind, along with the need to adapt to the effects of climate change, this project investigated ways to improve comfort, productivity and energy efficiency of enterprise buildings in two regions of remote Australia: tropical far north Queensland and arid central Australia. The need is more acute in such areas because energy-efficient building models are largely tailored to the southern regions of Australia, where the climate differs markedly from that in the remote communities in the study sites.
 
The study analysed the design, function, electricity consumption and thermal response to climate variables for eight buildings in these two regions of remote Australia, and the report provides several recommendations, including how the standard building energy efficiency model AccuRate can be adapted for use in remote Australia. The team also produced four educational flyers for building managers and other stakeholders on:
 

 
   
     
   
     
 
CRC-REP’s Population Mobility and Labour Markets Principal Research Leader, Associate Professor Mike Dockery, has co-authored a report into the effectiveness of Native Title agreements in meeting the needs and aspirations of three Aboriginal traditional owner groups in the Kimberley and Pilbara regions.
 
The report, Aboriginal assets? The impact of major agreements associated with Native Title in Western Australia, highlights the substantial challenges faced by title holders in leveraging benefits from the rights provided by Native Title. This is contrary to a common perception that they are ‘sitting on a gold mine’.
 
‘When we asked the traditional custodians what they hoped to achieve from Native Title agreements, they spoke of keeping their culture strong, securing access to their traditional lands and self-determination,’ Associate Professor Dockery said.

‘Economic development is certainly an objective of these agreements, but it is often negotiated in the form of employment opportunities and enterprise development as a means to self-empowerment and independence, not short-term financial gain.’
 
Ms Lynette Shaw, former Gooniyandi Aboriginal Corporation Acting CEO, said, ‘While our people are excited for the employment and enterprise development opportunities that come with leases, we want to be recognised as Gooniyandi people and ensure our country, stories and sacred sites are protected from developments.’
 
The report recommends a series of policy changes to better service Native Title arrangements for the benefit of all parties and their objectives.
 
   
     
   
     
 
CRC-REP PhD student Susan Congreve has recently released a research summary of her doctorate thesis titled The Enabling Environment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Centres.
 
Among other things, Susan’s research found that while government dominates the enabling environment, government policy discourse needs to better reflect the roles, capacities, limitations and operating realities of these art centres.
 
Get the full picture in the research summary here.

Photo: Badu Arts Centre
 
   
     
   
     
 
As always, the Interplay team have been busy spreading their wellbeing insights across Australia, this time with a talk in Townsville at James Cook University (and video link to the Cairns campus) and a terrific presentation at the AIATSIS National Indigenous Research Conference in March. The whole team presented to a full house and a great reception on the first day. You can read the abstract here.
 
 
 

More information about the project: https://crc-rep.com/interplay

 
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Remote diary

 
     
   
   
 

Publications

 
     
 

Journal articles, books, book sections

Crossin R, Cairney S, Lawrence A and Duncan J. 2017. Adolescent inhalant abuse leads to other drug use and impaired growth; implications for diagnosis. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health. 41, 1. pp. 99-104.
 
Wilson B, Guenther J and Cairney S. 2017. The role of education in the wellbeing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from remote communities (Review). Journal of Australian Indigenous Issues. 19, 3. pp. 2-19.
 
Conference presentations, seminars, workshops

Cairney S. 2017. Bringing together Aboriginal stories, government priorities and science to create change with the interactive Interplay Wellbeing Framework. Australian Science Communicators Ninth National Conference. 23-24 February. Adelaide.
 
Cairney S. 2017. Communicating neuroscience across cultures in remote Aboriginal communities with Brain Stories and No Smokes. Australian Science Communicators Ninth National Conference. 23-24 February. Adelaide.
 
Cairney S. 2017. Interplay Wellbeing Framework: 'Bringing together stories and numbers' to empirically measure Aboriginal cultural values in remote Australia. 15th World Congress on Public Health. 3-7 April. Melbourne.
 
Cairney S. 2017. Panel presentation: Evidence and wellbeing (the Interplay Wellbeing Framework: Building the evidence on pathways to wellbeing with community indicators from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in remote Australia). National Indigenous Research Conference. 20-22 March. AIATSIS and University of Canberra. Canberra.
 
Guenther J, Milgate G, Perrett B, Benveniste T, Osborne S and Disbray S. 2016. Boarding schools for remote secondary Aboriginal learners in the Northern Territory: Smooth transition or rough ride? AARE 2016. 27 November - 1 December. Melbourne. PDF here.
 
 
McRae-Williams E, Abbott T and Cairney S. 2017. Beyond the white Toyota: Searching for meaningful engagements with remote Aboriginal Australia. National Indigenous Research Conference. 20-22 March. AIATSIS and University of Canberra. Canberra.
 
Project updates, field day booklets, research summaries, corporate materials

Congreve S. 2017. Summary - The enabling environment for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art centres. Ninti One Limited. Alice Springs. PDF here.
 
Ninti One Limited. 2017. CRC-REP Exit Report. Ninti One Limited. Alice Springs. PDF here.
 
Osman P. 2017. Flyer: Managing hot roofs with aluminium foil. Ninti One Limited. Alice Springs. PDF here.
 
Osman P. 2017. Flyer: Save by switching off. Ninti One Limited. Alice Springs. PDF here.
 
Osman P. 2017. Flyer: Using fan-forced ventilation to cool buildings in northern Australia. Ninti One Limited. Alice Springs. PDF here.  
 
Osman P. 2017. Flyer: Waste heat - improving comfort, saving money. Ninti One Limited. Alice Springs. PDF here.
 
Osman P. 2017. Summary - Opportunities to improve indoor temperatures and electricity use in remote Australian buildings. Ninti One Limited. Alice Springs. PDF here.

 
     
 

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