Indigenous Community Volunteers

Joanna Lin - Childcare & Psychology

Joanna Lin volunteer profile (Includes excerpts from my emails sent home).

My background:

My background includes an interest and some experience in community development. I have a degree in Science (Psychology and Neuroscience) and experience working in childcare and administration. I also have a passion for traveling and learning about different cultures. While I had some skills and experience relevant to this project, I realized it was most important for the skills transfer to be open, adaptable and have good communication skills.

Why I volunteered:

I volunteered with ICV because I wanted to try to make some kind of positive contribution to Aboriginal Australia. I wanted to learn more about Aboriginal culture. I also wanted to have a challenging experience, push my comfort zone, see parts of Australia I had never been to before, meet new people, further my skills at the same time as sharing skills with others.

“I am opening my eyes to the beauty that is abundant out here, there are so many more shades of red and green than I ever thought possible in the desert. The people, especially children, are stunningly beautiful and there are more stars than I have ever seen before” (March 2005)

My project:

I volunteered with the Titjikala Childcare Centre in Central Australia from February to May 2005. My role was mentoring in skills for the childcare centre including childcare activities, cleaning and cooking skills, basic administration, computer and digital camera skills.

Project successes include:

A keenness from the young women to stay on at work in the afternoon to learn new skills. Making photographic manuals for how to do things in the childcare centre. Making a bilingual big book for the childcare centre about different parts of the body. Staff learning to cook new healthy recipes for the children. Making a childcare newsletter for the community. I was asked to stay on as a paid childcare mentor and ended up living out at Titjikala for almost a year.

I would suggest that future volunteers leave a detailed record / history of the skills shared and work done for the community to use in the future, so when people move on, learnings are not lost.

What I learnt:

Living and working at Titjikala was a precious and enriching experience. I feel lucky to have made many good friends there. I learnt so much from the women and kids especially when we went out bush. I loved learning about language and culture, digging for witchetty grubs, tracking and hunting, learning about the land and dreaming stories.

“My favourite part of life lately are the spontaneous bush trips...always tracking perenties (giant lizard), wallabies, goannas, emus, dingos, camels, rabbits and cows...we went to dog dreaming the other day, while the women cooked malu [kangaroo] tail the kids and i explored the dried waterhole, scaled the highest and steepest red sandhill I’ve seen, stopping under little bushes on the way up to avoid 3rd deg burns to out feet, played in the river bed to the constant chatter and stories about the land...precious” (April 2005)

 “I am adapting more and more to the desert community life...and learning new things everyday” (March 2005)

I learnt about the importance of talking together and developing relationships, and building on skills and ideas that already existed. Helping develop the young women’s confidence was important too as was always giving and expecting respect. I also learnt that there are many different ways of doing things. The experience emphasised the importance of family for Aboriginal people and for myself.

The whole experience improved my skills in cross-cultural communication, my resourcefulness, patience and adaptability and I now use these skills in everyday life wherever I am.

“I love working and hanging with the kids who continue to amaze me with their creativity, resilience and resourcefulness...these are the toughest and smartest kids you'd meet...” (April 2005)

Living in a remote Aboriginal Community isn’t always easy but understanding and remembering that life can be difficult for many people is very important. Some situations were heartbreaking and affected me deeply.

My message to would be volunteers:

My advice to future volunteers is to always keep an open mind and an open heart.

"Anyway life continues to be incredibly challenging, stimulating, frustrating, exciting, lonely, crazy and calm all at once...who would want it any other way, right?!” (May 2005)

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