Bridging the Gap Seminar

Releasing, empowering and equipping people for their own development.

Topics Covered

Reflection on the present situation in
Arnhem Land
History of Contact, Trade, employment, health and drug abuse. Failure of the dominant culture to communicate.
Loss of Control/Purpose.
High death rate

Capacity Building Blockers
What are they?
Cultural naming.
Two way mystification.
Human Dynamics of culture.
Programs that fit dominant culture values/world view

Traditional Kinship Structures
A different way of seeing family relationships.
Yin and Yang in Arnhemland.
Avoidance relationships.
What is Yothu/Yindi?

Traditional Land Owning Systems
Surface and subsurface land ownership.
Ancient alliances for trade and conservation.
Sacred sites explained.
What are dreaming tracks?
Natural farming practices.

Education that Works
World viewing.
Cultural knowledge base/gaps.
Generative words and phrases.
Community Education vs Elitist Education.
Appropriating new knowledge.
Who can teach who?
The people's language : an extremely good educational tool.

Examples of Successful Projects
Projects that empower the people to create their own interventions to affect their own future and cost negative to Government.
Including Health, Economic, Legal and Governance education.
Petrol sniffing and other drug abuse interventions.

* RELEVANT PAPERS AND DOCUMENTS ARE ALSO HANDED OUT DURING THE WORKSHOP

Communication across cultures.
What is language?
When is ‘yes’ not a ‘yes’?
The T.A. of communication
Prefixing / Suffixing languages
From the peoples language to English.
Health, economic and legal academic language.
Use of English as a second language.

Traditional Law and Politics
The Madayin Law.
Traditional forms of encoding information.
The role and purpose of songlines.
Traditional political leadership.
(No sacred information will be divulged)

Traditional and non-traditional learning processes
The traditional learning process.
Comparing education systems.
The conflict between the two systems

Different Cultural mores
Three-minute rule.
Communication helpers.
Body language and good manners.
Dress codes.

Answering particular questions
During the workshop we will answer questions from the floor covering a wide range of different disciplines, creating a lively, active and if necessary controlled dialogue.