A report from Toomelah, NSW: Aboriginal community challenges, reflections and implications for UNE Indigenous Education Research

A School of Education seminar presented on October 31st, 2018 by Dr Rose Amazan, Associate Professor Bob Boughton, Dr Julie Collins, Dr Vegnes Maniam and Dr Keita Takayama

In this seminar, we report the outcomes of our recent community consultations with the people in Toomelah, a small Aboriginal community in Northern NSW. It is one of the Aboriginal communities where the Literacy for Life’s Adult Literacy Campaign has been rolled out last year.

Our three-day community consultation took place from 17 to 20 September and was funded by the Faculty Strategic Research Initiative 2018. Our aim is to demonstrate how our approach to the community was guided by the ‘best practice’ in research and community development with Aboriginal people. We also invite our colleagues to consider how UNE researchers could work with the Toomelah community to address some of the pressing issues in the community. We will discuss:

  1. our original funding proposal and the rationale
  2. our preparation for the first field visit
  3. the activities we undertook at the community
  4. our reflections and future planning
  5. implications for UNE.

Presentation