This works!
A new excellent initiative by the Women for Wik group is the new website What’s working. Here, the group will collect and publish information about projects that have been proven to work in Indigenous communities. With the negative media coverage that Indigenous communities overwhelmingly have in mainstream media, this site can become a valuable source of information about what has worked. Here’s the launch letter by Eva Cox:
White-list is the new black
What’s working in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities all over
Australia? Lots of very good projects and programs, most of which are
locally run and controlled!
Why do most people think nothing works? Because a lot of the good stuff gets
overlooked, defunded or just ignored by most mainstream media. What have we
done? Set up a webpage www.whatsworking.com.au to collect evidence and
showcase good Indigenous projects that was launched yesterday in Sydney.
Next step suggested at the Launch was adding a White-list to show all the
recent and current good projects that were/are working before defunding or
being closed. Some are CDEP projects, others short term pilot programs that
didn’t get followed up.
Why should people know about good programs and bad funding decisions?
Because our levels of ignorance allows Governments to make too many bad
decisions that ignore evidence, such as the latest attempt to under-fund and
therefore undermine the Homelands policy in the NT.
We launched the webpage with an encouraging message from Marian Scrymgour,
and Larissa Behrendt’s speech explaining why so many /government decisions
failed to take note of evidence of what does work we celebrated with some 50
plus list members at the Mori Gallery. Darlene Johnson, who has made films
in the NT and Eileen Cummings added their voices to the importance of
understanding issues like the NT homelands.
What can you do? Look at the webpage and see what we have found so far. Tell
us about any other projects you know about, so we can continue to publicise
what works. Tell us if something has been de-funded or closed, despite being
needed and working well.
We are also doing this because we want voters to make more informed
decisions than the politicians they elected! Despite the Apology, progress
has been slow and sometimes policies have gone backwards, often because of
relentlessly negative reporting of crises and deficits.
Women for Wik will holds governments to their stated commitment to
evidence-based policies by offering access to evidence of the programs that
have worked, are working and could work with appropriate support. By
offering the wider community a clearer understanding of the good stuff that
is happening, we hope to build support for policies that respect and enhance
the capacities of our Indigenous communities to manage their own lives.
eva cox for the co-ordinating group 28.6.09
