Program: Teaching Kids, Teaching Tourists, Sharing Culture

The Warlayirti Artists Committee’s ‘Teaching Kids, Teaching Tourists, Sharing Culture’ vision is for people in the Kutjungka region to develop new opportunities for themselves and their children by capitalising on their rich and unique culture. Specific objectives include to:

1. Develop commercial enterprises through the Culture Centre based on the sale of cultural products and limited and innovative cultural tourism as directed by local Indigenous people.  
   

2. Promote local participation in, and ownership of, the commercial enterprise in order to sustain it and bring integrity, as well as to enhance and maintain local Indigenous knowledge.  
   

3. Contribute to community strengthening and capacity development for the people of the region, including by providing access to suitable training for local people to gain relevant skills.

A community development approach is being used to achieve these objectives.

Community development is a participatory process where groups work together to define and achieve their goals in a way that builds individual and collective capacity and increases participants’ control over their communities. By participating actively in all steps of the process and collectively owning and implementing solutions people gain skills, knowledge and experience that enable them to tackle other issues of concern.

The Culture Centre employs Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff who work together to organise and run the activities of the Centre. The staff of the Centre work under the direction of the Warlayirti Artists Committee who are responsible for determining the direction and nature of the activities.

The main features of our approach are:

• The recognition that the unique culture of the region is the key asset of the Culture Centre

• Local knowledge is central to the development of appropriate initiatives

• Participation and ownership are the keys to sustainability

• Staff working side by side with community members

• Adequate time to develop and implement plans

• Flexibility and a multi-faceted approach