CDEP News Story

It's not unusual for a year 12 student to do work experience at a radio station and then decide that media studies is for him or her. What is unusual, is when that student lives in one of the more remote regions of the Western Desert and has been able to access a radio station without leaving home.

Ngaanyatjarra Media is very much a product of the people, for the people. An example is the daily school broadcasts on Wingellina community radio. Thirty-five students attend Wingellina school, from kindergarten to year twelve, and part of their basic language training is writing for the 'Wingellina News'. Teacher Suzanne Terwey explained, 'They talk about issues, write about them, put them on computer, read their stories in the classroom and take them home.' And then they read them out on the radio. There is similar involvement from other community groups throughout the Ngaanyatjarra Lands.

Ngaayatjarra Media is now in its 11th year and has grown from a single community BRACS unit to being the regional media organisation serving 13 communities in WA's Western Desert region. It was recently incorporated and now has an enthusiastic media committee made up of a representative from each community together with a male and female chairperson (Belle Davidson and Bruce Williamson) as well as the chair of Ngaanyatjarra Council. This committee has now developed a Strategic Plan which brings together the important role of cultural and language maintenance with informing, educating, empowering and entertaining the yarnangu of the Ngaanyatjarra Lands.

Each community has one or more media workers actively producing and broadcasting radio and video shows, with a total of 20 trainees involved from across the lands. Most of these are CDEP participants undertaking a nationally accredited course through Batchelor College, but making use of Ngaanyatjarra Media equipment and expertise. This expertise comes via Media Coordinator Daniel Featherstone who, together with yarnangu tutor Rhys Winter and the newly appointed media trainer and radio manager, Ananth Siluvaimichael, oversee production and the regular training workshops.

Daniel is committed to getting all communities fully involved, 'We do it all Ngaanyatjarra style,' he said. 'You want to inspire people to see the potential of media on the Lands and get involved. You have to see where the energy is and follow that and make it part of what media is doing. My job is to support the production of local media in order to connect up families and make people proud of who they are. Our focus is to get radio up and happening first because it's so accessible. Participants are getting immediate feedback.'

Ngaanyatjarra Media broadcasts a daily Ngaanyatjarra Radio Show via satellite over Radio 5NPY. Most of its programs are in Ngaanyatjarra language with content including local news and events, interviews with people from the community, music and requests. They regularly receive requests from right across the Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara Lands, even as far as the Port Augusta prison. Some of the radio programs are live to air but because of the poor quality of the telephone lines in the Lands it is not possible to broadcast from most communities other than Wingellina. Each community records their show onto a minidisk which travels by mail plane to Wingellina from where they can be broadcast. It is hoped that government funding will allow for improved telecommunication services which will enable a radio network, videoconferencing and an internet network for the Lands.

All of this is part of Ngaanyatjarra Media's plans for it's future development. As well as radio and video, they are looking towards website development, multi-media, desktop publishing, videoconferencing and other new forms of communication. There is so much potential and so much to learn.

One of the issues that have arisen is common to many CDEPs. It is not easy to access funds to top up wages to boost employment to full time. In Ngaanyatjarra Media's case only two of its CDEP participants involved are working full time. There is more work available but not the funds. As Daniel Featherstone said, 'Both in our region and in other media organisations nationally (we are a member of the Indigenous Remote Communications Association) this issue has been raised as needing to be addressed and an award wage system is to be worked out. While I am very impressed by the amount of work and commitment that our media workers do give, it would be remiss of me to give the impression that everything is rosy. We are looking at ways of generating income so that we can pay more appropriately, but this may take a while.'