LITTLEWELL, STRENGTH IN SHARED STRATEGIC VISION (WA)

Acknowledgement

We acknowledge the members of the Littlewell Working Group and Littlewell family members, Buddy Alone, Reg Brockman, Yvonne Bradley, Annette Bynder, Lorraine Bynder, Colleen Alone, Anita Farrell, Kathy Jacobs, respected “Littlewell” Elders, Roma Cameron (Deceased) Maxine Cameron (Deceased) Uncle Bill Jones, Uncle Vernon Brockman, Brother Horace Bynder (Harvey), Alfred Farrell (Patch). Their dedication and investment of time, travel and personal resources saw this vision through to fruition. We thank them for their bravery and courage to share their stories with us all.

On the outskirts of the town of Mingenew in Midwest Western Australia lies a former Aboriginal reserve named Jinjamarba Baba, or Littlewell. In 2010, a group of elders—who are either former residents of Littlewell, or their descendants—established the Littlewell Working Group. There are now 30 members in the Group.

The vision of the Group was to preserve the reserve, and build a heritage trail to celebrate and honour the lives of people who had lived there. They also wanted to record the history of the area, and post it online, so that their stories would not be lost in time. The reserve was closed in 1972, and given to the Shire of Mingenew to use for recreational purposes. Littlewell realised early on that it would be important to work closely with the Shire in order to move towards their long-term dream. A key spokesperson was elected for the Group, who spent time building a relationship with the shire, with the local community, and other key stakeholders. Over time, this responsibility was shared by group members.

Littlewell has now achieved their dream to establish the trail and record their stories. This is a testament to their persistence, resilience, strategic thinking, and effective governance over the years. The Group won the 2019 NAIDOC Award for Caring for Country and the 2018 award of Woolworths Community Group of the Year through the Western Australian Regional Achievement and Community Awards as further evidence of their success.

“These stories are everything, they are important for our grannies, for us to be able to say this is where we came from, this is who we are, some of our grannies are young, teenagers, not really interested in these stories now, but in a few years they will be, now they will be able to have something to listen to, they will know who they are, know they come from somewhere.” - Kathy Jacobs

We recognise the support of the Mingenew Shire, Lotterywest, our Community First Development team, Doyen Radcliffe and Emma Mulvaney and volunteer Peter White who were instrumental in progressing the Group’s aims.

Produced as part of our Action Research Project, this case study centres on the Littlewell Working Group. It discusses social policy implications and potential attributes of effective First Nations and Western governance practices in First Nations organisations.