ROTARY CLUB OF SYDNEY COVE
BANIYALA PROJECT PHASE #2
BLUE MUD BAY, EAST ARNHEM LAND, NT
VISITING OFFICERS ACCOMMODATION
CONSTRUCTION BY
BANIYALA INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY
SUPERVISED BY
ROTARY CLUB OF SYDNEY COVE
AUGUST – NOVEMBER 2007
WEEKLY REPORTS TO THE ROTARY CLUB OF SYDNEY COVE BULLETIN
Date: 28 August 2007 6:33:25 PM
Subject: Baniyala - Start of phase #2
Visiting Officer Quarters Accommodation Building
We flew into Gove on Monday night and met with local Perkins Shipping manager, Greg Anderson today, who has been most helpful. Greg together with the CEO of Perkins in Darwin, Peter Hopton (who just happens to be President of Darwin Rotary) have agreed to make available their special side loading container truck. Without Perkins’ cooperation we were facing having to unload all four containers from the back of a truck by hand! Mercifully that has been averted. Perkins, along with another semitrailer from T&L Transport will be delivering the four 20’-0” shipping containers to Baniyala this Saturday.
We also visited the Head Master of Laynhapuy Homelands School, Ric Browne, to brief him on the upcoming visit by the Head Master of Blue Mountains Grammar School, Stuart Walker, on 3/10/07. A key issue is the United World Colleges. Spend a few moments looking at the local web site:
The weather has been strange here with unpredictable showers of rain for the past month that cause havoc with roads at this time of year. Hopefully no more rain until after Saturday!
Robert Bradshaw and Andy Buttfield
Date: 4 September 2007 9:26:46 PM
Subject: Baniyala Phase #2, Report 2
The trucks arrived on site Saturday ahead of time at 9-50 am. Both truck drivers reported good road conditions and there appears to be virtually no damage to any of the goods inside the four shipping containers. This is a credit to the entire transport network, which moved the goods from Canberra to Baniyala, starting out by road to Sydney, rail to Darwin via Adelaide, barge to Gove, and road to Baniyala.
The four containers were unloaded in less than an hour and positioned precisely where we had marked out. Foundations were dug on Saturday and Sunday and the building support columns were started on Monday. We will complete the columns on Wednesday this week. Then the Baniyala building team start laying the floor bearers and joists to support the fibro floor.
I want to express my sincere thanks to my friends, Robert Bradshaw and John Bulman. I want to pay tribute to them for the huge amount of work they have put into this project. Robert’s 35 years running his own building/development company has all been brought into sharp focus on this project. His attention to detail, knowledge of materials and overall design concepts have resulted in a building that the community will be justly proud to own and is capable of being replicated by them with guidance by skilled supervision for several more years. John is senior design engineer for Ergon Energy in Townsville and has worked with Robert to develop foundations and building designs that comply with the onerous cyclone design codes for this extreme risk area. John has been able to bring in novel and economic design concepts never used before in the building industry of the NT, but he and his organization have used for years in the construction of high voltage transmission lines across Queensland and the Northern Territory. He has also been the initiator of our club’s remote area dental service in East Arnhem Land. It was donated funds from Clayton Utz that enabled us to purchase dental equipment which was included in the container delivery.
For the first time in some 30 years since this Homeland community was established, there will now be accommodation for one or two full time qualified teachers for the school’s 52 enrolled children. The building will also be able to accommodate other visiting officers.
There is concern here with aspects of the federal government intervention program. Of particular concern is the cancellation of CDEP payments next month. It is not known or understood by the community what will happen from next month. The broad concept is that CDEP will make way for real jobs not pretend work and nonsense “training” schemes. This is easier said than done when the community have many people who have very poor English written and oral communication skills, no numeracy skills and very limited work experience. They don’t know how they are to find work in such an isolated homeland. A team of federal public servants visited here last Friday but the community was unimpressed with the information they were given. Fear of loss of income is the underlying concern, so hopefully things will work out better than they currently expect.
On the positive side, everyone we have asked in the community has welcomed the banning of importation of Kava, a ceremonial drink from Fiji. No more days zonked out recovering from the sedation effects of Kava. There are signs that alcohol consumption has increased in those communities that allow alcohol and that the illicit Kava black market will expand. Baniyala has never allowed alcohol and is proud of that. As I reported last year, there has never been so much as a raised voice here during the many weeks I have camped in the middle of this community. There is no known child or women abuse and no destruction of property. There are a couple of good reasons for our involvement here and Baniyala is not one of the communities targeted for federal intervention.
We have encountered two sizable snakes this week. I intercepted one in our tool store last Friday which was just cleaning up mice and frogs. Robert encountered another last night in our shower block. It returned today to bite one of the visiting teachers who had to be evacuated in by air to Gove. Add mosquitos descending in bomber formation at 6-45 PM each night for an hour or so and you have the makings of life in the north.
Andy Buttfield
Date: 11 September 2007 7:44:22 PM
Subject: Baniyala Phase #2 - report #3
We have made good building progress since our last report. A week ago Laynhapuy Homeland contractors were pouring foundations whilst our trainee lads unpacked the containers, laid out all the materials and by today had completed the compressed fibro floor and stood all wall frames. As with any construction project there is a need to increase the number of workers in the middle of the programme so as to complete the work in the optimum time. We were concerned that we would have inadequate numbers of worker/trainees as the job progresses, but Djambawa Marawili (elder and community leader) and Waka Mununggurr (community leader) rallied the community and the outcome has been good. Long may it last!
Djambawa made a quick trip to Sydney during the past week to welcome President Bush to the National Maritime Museum to explain their “Salt Water collection” of paintings by indigenous East Arnhem Land artists. It seems utterly incongruous, that from shaking hands with the US President on Thursday afternoon he was hunting turtles Saturday afternoon and sitting around the camp fire relaxing from what he described his time in Sydney as “scary with helicopters everywhere”. Shortly after he arrived here on Saturday morning he received an instruction to leave Baniyala by bush taxi on Sunday evening so as to be in Canberra Monday for this entire week.
Over the past 30 to 40 years primary education for the parents and generation of lads working with us has been an abject failure by any measure due in large part to deliberate under funding in favour of marginal electorates. They really struggle with simple maths and English skills. The very good news is that there is now a totally committed qualified teacher who is so delighted she will have somewhere to live when we complete our building project. She currently camps two nights per week in a tent erected on the veranda of the school. Two other teaching staff also camp on the veranda.
The poor education outcomes of yesterday is the very reason why our Rotary Club is taking such an active role in supporting the teaching effort so as to boost achievement levels in Baniyala. A shorter-term goal is for us to impart some practical building skills to those who have missed out on formal primary and secondary education so they can begin to gain some income earning and essential maintenance capabilities. The overall aim is for the next generation of school leavers to be able to make choices as to what they do with their lives. They will be in a position to choose a hunter-gatherer life or continue into tertiary education thus enabling them to become skilled workers. The choice will be theirs; this is something the lads working with us have never had.
Our wives arrived Thursday night in Gove, were met by Robert and were here by Friday night. They will be here for about two weeks and have been invited by Djambawa and the teachers to participate in the school classroom lessons, which they have found immensely interesting and challenging. They have also been asked to take an interest in the community shop.
Robert Bradshaw and Andy Buttfield
Date: 18 September 2007 4:19:58 PM
Subject: Baniyala Phase #2 - Report #4
We have made good progress again this week, but the temperature is rising so we and the aboriginal lads working on the job have found it very debilitating. We have adopted a workday starting at 7-00 AM until 1-00 PM with a smoko break then work again from 4-00 PM to 6-30 PM. This keeps us out of the afternoon sun. We have now a core team of about 12 regular workers who want to be builders and they are beginning to work as a team with the output improving and less hand-holding each day. They are more punctual than had been the case last year and are being pushed to maintain that discipline. Oranges are the reward at the end of each day. These are a bit like gold to the team.
The recently appointed Laynhapuy Homeland plumbers drove here on Friday to sort out materials needed and returned Sunday. They have already roughed in all the pipes in the building and sorted out many issues around the community. These guys are excellent tradesman and have worked for many years in the bush and are able to speak the local Yolgnu language fluently. We did a preliminary survey by walking to each household before they arrived to identify the cause of water supply failures. We had previously identified a design fault in the water system, which is now about to be rectified for about $200 compared to the $85,000 allocated following a $40,000 consultants report. The electricians will be here on Wednesday to do what has to be done before we can install the internal lining of the rooms.
Last weeks reports dealt with the major cause of failure of education in the remote homelands being inadequate resources, so watch this space for more. Jackie Bradshaw and Jo Buttfield have spent most of last week in the school assisting the visiting and local teaching staff. They have found it somewhat depressing to observe the poor English literacy and numeracy skills. They found fourteen year olds unable to spell the days of the week or names of the months or even their own names to be not at all unusual but they have found the younger primary children hungry to learn. It is imperative that this generation do not become failure statistics like their older siblings and the lads we have working and training with us. Five secondary children spend two days in a class here then fly to nearby Garrthalala community secondary school for the last three days each week. The education standard of these students does not compare in any way with mainstream secondary schools. There are many reasons why student numbers vary each day; for instance today many have gone to a funeral on Elcho Island. By the end of this week there will be another funeral on Groote Eylandt. Both of the deceased are understood to be grandmothers to some children.
Jackie and Jo have established a great rapport with the children and have found that many spent this past weekend hunting with their families for muscles, oysters, crabs, fish, dugong, turtle and bush honey. This focus on hunting may be related to necessity due to necessity at the end of the welfare payment cycle and are hungry. Robert was offered some dried dingo meat, but when he told them he only ate live dingo, there was much mirth. These bush foods supplement their diet of processed food that is so damaging to health. Our observation is that the community is a lot healthier than we experienced over the last two years. We have noted an almost total lack of “snotty nose” and weeping eye problems. Their skin condition is far better, but there is a lot of lung and gums infection and tooth abscesses around right now.
One delightful character, who is the youngest accomplished artist of east Arnhem Land, Napuwarri (John-David) Marawili aged 40, asked us to take him into the bush to transport his selected log back here for him to paint. It will be fascinating to be able to follow much of his progress over what he says will be about a six week project. There is also a Baniyala band that practices each night. They will be travelling to nearby music festivals soon.
Djambawa Marawili returned from his impromptu visit to Canberra and Sydney last Saturday. He is hoping to spend the next two weeks here. He does not like all the travel and time away as it has prevented him getting on with his work as an artist and as a community leader.
Andy Buttfield
Date: 25 September 2007 4:19:24 PM
Subject: Baniyala Phase #2 Report #5
Wulkuwulku Marawili (Amos) - resident musician and builder
Napuwarri Marawili (John-David) - artist
Our contribution to healthy eating
We have had a very productive week and made solid progress. The roof is complete except for flashing and ridge cap, which can be done in the cooler part of the day over the next couple of weeks. The entry stairs and internal doorjambs are installed and on Monday we started work installing the ceilings sheets. They look really good. The internal walls are the same pre-painted metal sheets as the ceilings. The electricians spent three days over last weekend roughing in all the electrical and communications wiring. The place looks like a forest of wires. This building would have to be the best equipped anywhere in the remote north. TV, broadband, wireless network, smoke detectors, air conditioning etcetera. Great guys and hard workers. We will see them again as soon as we have the internal walls complete.
We are using tradesmen for electrical, plumbing and tiling, as there are no indigenous tradesmen in the region. This is all part of the failure of education in remote communities. Charles Darwin University (CDU) boasts that it launched an indigenous apprentices pilot program in early July for seventeen “apprentices” based at four of their campuses, (two south of Darwin, and one each at Katherine and Alice Springs.) The apprenticeships are in Agriculture, Business Administration, Children’s Services, Financial Services, Horticulture, Information Technology and Warehouse Distribution but where are the conventional construction tradesmen and tradeswomen who are in critically short supply? CDU have redefined “apprentice”. The plumbers, electricians, carpenters and metal workers are non-existent! Mining companies such as Rio Tinto, Argyle Diamond Mine and now Alcan Gove have worked out that it is good business to train indigenous people who live locally to be capable of working in their enterprises. Alcan have just started a pilot program with CDU that starts by teaching basic literacy and numeracy before they can move on to skills training. Women are part of this movement. It is interesting to note that women make the best haul truck drivers for carrying the bauxite. Until recently Alcan had not directly employed any aboriginals but have hired a few through contractors.
Our objective remains unchanged: Qualified full time residential teachers from primary school onwards are essential here and housing is needed to accommodate them.
In an earlier report we gave some details of life in the north when describing snakes, snakebite, mice and frogs. Let’s add crows! There are hundreds of them and they are so cheeky. They discovered a way to remove a protective cover over some of our food storage that was well up off the ground under our sunshade. They helped themselves to our pasta. We learnt last year to store everything in steel boxes to keep out both dogs and crows, but we had one cardboard box with the pasta in it. We had a wild buffalo roaming through the community last weekend. These animals can be dangerous but the dogs went ballistic and hunted it out.