Indigenous Cultural Exchange

A program which builds on The Long Walk's existing partnerships to offer cultural exchange between Indigenous communities to

☻                   Trade cultural knowledge to strengthen participating Indigenous communities.

☻                   Develop self-esteem through cultural practice

☻                   Support professional and economic development

Weaving Dandenong with Wadaye

Building on Essendon Football Club's existing fostership program with the Wadaye community, The Long Walk will co-ordinate an exchange between a group of Indigenous women from the Dandenong Community, and the Wadaye Palngun Warangat (Women's Association). The exchange will be a cultural exchange between communities through basket weaving and fibre craft.

The Long Walk has a significant partnership with Essendon Football Club with its administration base housed at Windy Hill. This provides the opportunity for both organisations to strengthen their national programs.

Essendon's existing program with Wadaye is about rewarding kids to stay in school through mentoring by an Indigenous player. While female students participate in the community, it is generally only the male students who travel to Melbourne to visit the club, attend a game and participate in The Long Walk.

By offering an exchange with a group of Melbourne artists, the female students can be included in the rewards of staying in schools to maximise their education.

The Long Walk has a relationship with Indigenous weavers in the Dandenong Indigenous community who are interested in professional development through exchange with other Indigenous communities who are weavers. The Long Walk will offer the opportunity of an exchange between the Women's Centre at Wadaye and the Dandenong women, where both communities host the other in two separate stages.

In the first stage Wadaye women and female students will travel to Melbourne with the Wadaye group who come for Dreamtime at the G and The Long Walk in May 2009. They will participate in a week long artists' residency with Dandenong women, hosted by Melbourne school, Eltham College of Education. The school will provide accommodation for the Wadaye group as well as its professional quality art facilities and gallery. The group will also be involved in activities around Essendon Football Club as appropriate. The week will end in a positive outcome from their cultural practice – such as an exhibition at the school or the club.

The second stage would involve the Dandenong women travelling to Wadaye in August/September to sit with the women Palngun Warangat and learn their practice. The second stage outcome could be a practical one which extends the connection outside of the two visits – such as making table centrepieces for The Long

Walk Women's Luncheon, where they can be bought to raise funds for the Palngun Warangat /The Long Walk. The visit will also provide the opportunity for The Long Walk Project Manager to consolidate capacity building efforts such as finding a Melbourne outlet for the art produced by Wadaye Palngun Warangat.

THE STORY SO FAR

In 2008 The Long Walk engaged with Dandenong basket weavers to offer a cultural awareness opportunity for our partners. This resulted in traditional weaving being the basis for table centrepieces at The Long Walk Women's Luncheon. Making the centrepieces brought Indigenous and non-Indigenous women together to learn this skill, giving the event a firm base in women's cultural practice. The centrepieces gave the guests a talking point to engage in cross cultural discussion around the tables, thereby encouraging interaction between non-Indigenous business women and Indigenous women. Guests were invited to take the centrepieces home for a donation to The Long Walk and all 55 centrepieces were taken. While working on this project the artists identified the desire for professional development through exchange with another weaving community. The interest from non-Indigenous women in learning this skill and the resulting centrepieces demonstrated the potential for supporting a group of artists to be able to access this exchange and the seed of a market for the work produced from the project. From this project The Long Walk aims to establish an annual Indigenous cultural exchange program with a public outcome that can reach large numbers of non-Indigenous people through The Long Walk's events.