Mudgin-Gal is all about building true resilience by giving our community members the skills, esteem, practice and confidence they need to stand up for themselves. The social, legal and other situations we face are often complex and hard to navigate.

In this project, participants learn positive ways to express themselves to help achieve equitable outcomes in their parenting, health, education, before the law and in employment.

Techniques learned help participants navigate difficult situations in a constructive way and reinforce that being intimidated is not acceptable. They help our community learn to deal with situations that can offer them real help and support but often have the opposite result.

These situations range from parent/teacher meetings, to face to face meetings with bureaucrats in housing and other government departments, to the reporting sexual abuse and so on.

Any donation toward this program will help individuals speak for themselves.

Please nominate ‘Speaking for Ourselves’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.

Much of Mudgin-Gal’s work involves organising educational opportunities, outings, attendance at cultural and community events and of course, conducting outreach services.

However, our ability to achieve much of what we’re capable of is limited by lack of transport. We are forced to rely on other hard-pressed community vehicles and are often unable to pursue a project or other opportunity because of transport logistics problems.

Having the independence to say ‘yes’ to helping people and pursuing projects because we have our own transport would really extend our reach.

Any donation toward a 12-seater People Mover would move us closer to achieving our aims

Please nominate ‘Mudgin-Gal People Mover’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.

One of Mudgin-Gal’s many roles is to educate and deliver constructive prevention programs that address domestic violence. Its Black Out Violence program has been widely praised and replicated elsewhere. Equally important is its role in responding to trauma and grief by supporting victims of family violence and abuse.

Mudgin-Gal is in a unique position to provide families who’ve lived with abuse with culturally appropriate opportunities for recovery. Too often, due to cultural differences, history and other circumstances, victims in our community have no safe place to turn for help and can never move past their experience.

One way to help them heal is by running special camps that provide the nurturing, understanding and safe place families need to heal. The healing, discovery and hope that is promoted at these camps go along way to healing the community as a whole.

To provide one person with transport, food, accommodation and specialist counselling at a healing camp from $1,000

Please nominate ‘Healing Our Way’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.

A number of women in our community have made outstanding achievements in their chosen fields, often against all the odds and in ways that help inspire, lead and promote the interests of their peers.

This scheme is aimed at helping such women advance to the next stage so they can fulfill the potential they have already shown.

These are local women identified by Mudgin-Gal as having the real ability to bring the life and work skills gained during the process of further learning back into our community.

Project 1: A young Redfern woman who studied photography and film making for several years, has revealed a talent and dedication worth supporting. She has always funded her own work but is now stumped by the cost required to complete a short film project.

Film Making Grant: $1,000

Project 2: Another young Waterloo woman, while single-handedly raising her 10-year-old brother, completed several martial arts courses and attained a high level of achievement. She now needs assistance to complete an advanced course with a strong health and fitness component to fulfill her ambition to bring her skills back to Redfern.

Health Through Martial Arts Grant: $3,000

Please nominate ‘Women Pursuing Excellence Project 1’ or ‘Project 2’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.

This Redfern Computer Centre program offers 20 places that will enable suitable young Aboriginal people to learn the digital media skills that are so essential to their employment, creative and educational prospects.

The skills and programs taught include Photoshop and web design and development: skills that not only promote employment prospects but also their ability to become advocates and leaders in our community.

For 12 weeks’ training, 2 days per week for 20 students $8,500

Please nominate ‘Media Education Sponsorship’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.

This Redfern Computer Centre project offers further education and skill development aimed specifically at promoting employment opportunities in office and administrative positions.

It involves the provision of 20 training positions to suitable young Aboriginal people already in employment or seeking employment.

Without this kind of training and development members of our community face few prospects of gaining employment that will lead to a career outside the short term, unskilled or casual arenas.

For 20 weeks’ training, 3 days per week for 20 students $10,000

Please nominate ‘Comprehensive Office Training Sponsorship’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.

The Redfern Foundation currently funds the essential work of the Redfern Computer Centre to $35,000 p.a. This covers a paid 30-day-a week manager. Work Ventures supplies computers and technical support. Both organisations also organise volunteer support.

We have no doubt that the acknowledged long term success of the RCC and the opportunities it has provided so many community members could be expanded with more equipment and the full-time attention of a coordinator.

If we can achieve what we have already, imagine what we could do with more?

To join us as a partner to achieve our aims for 08/09 $15,000and/or
To upgrade to a full-time coordinator $25,000

Please nominate ‘Join Our Success Story’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.

The autonomy, independence, employment and educational prospects that having a valid driver’s licence confers are considerable – but many members of our community never have a chance to obtain one. With no vehicle in which to build up the 120 required practice hours, few licensed drivers available to oversee the driver learning period and no funds for dedicated driving lessons, the seemingly ‘basic’ goal of gaining a licence is an elusive one in our community.

This program would enable 60 young Aboriginal people to obtain their drivers licences. We have already organised to partner with OASIS (Salvation Army) who will, over the course of a year, provide each participant with 3 hours’ driving experience per week, a volunteer driving instructor and a car.

Now, we just need the funding to make sure it happens.

To help obtain driver’s licences for 60 students $5,000

Please nominate ‘Driver’s Licence Program’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.

The Babana Bus is the vehicle we need for providing outreach, homeless relief, medical, legal, family visits, community attendance at funerals, to enable attendance at men’s health awareness and knowledge sharing sessions and so much more.

Without appropriate and accessible transport for our dedicated groups and other community functions we are seriously hampered in our work.

Importantly, as well as our everyday work, the bus is the means to provide our men and boys with ‘out of town’ days. Too many of us never, ever leave the confines of our few small suburbs. These special days offer breathing space and release, cultural connections and affirmations and a much-needed break from what is often a pressure cooker existence. Even the chance to see and experience lifestyles other than those we have grown up with can offer some of our boys perspectives, insights and a broader horizon to look out to.

Our Babana events are culturally, educationally and emotionally positive – but we really need this bus to maximise the reach and benefit of our programs and events.

Any donations toward the purchase and upkeep of a Babana bus will help

Please nominate ‘The Babana Bus’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.

The Block lies in the heart of Redfern and is a centre of urban Aboriginal identity. But for too long now it has attracted the wrong kind of attention.

There is a universal desire that the Block be cleaned of the drugs and violence which have overtaken it and reclaim it for family use. This movement, driven by Babana, aims to restore the Block as a safe and welcoming place for all. A recent ‘Family Day on the Block’ attracted 3,000 people who shamed the drug dealers out and instead used the Block to showcase Aboriginal talent, accomplishment and possibility through culture, performance, ceremony and talk.

As a regular quarterly event ‘Family Day on the Block’ has the potential to help this become a positive centre for our community: an emblem of Redfern as a place of pride, activity and culture.

But first it has to be reclaimed.

4 Family Days on the Block $5,000 each

Please nominate ‘Clean up the Block’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.

Across Australia’s population, men have a consistently lower life expectancy and higher rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer, substance misuse, mental health problems and self harm than women. In our community, already burdened by high levels of chronic ill health and low life expectancy, this situation is magnified.

Last year, a pilot of a new health program, developed by Babana and our community men was held on Rodd Island in the inner west of Sydney.

More than 100 men aged 16 to 60 came from towns as far as Yass and Port Macquarie to access health awareness workshops in an environment of cultural appropriateness, privacy and dignity. This was an outstanding result and demonstrates that men do care about their health – they just need a safe place in which to share their concerns, learn more about prevention and treatment options and find support.

This community-initiated program has the potential to reach thousands of men each year because of the high trust factor within the traditional networks that promote it. Yet it is under-resourced and attracts little ongoing interest from public funders.

This is a chance to make a real difference in an area of critical need.

6 trips of 200 men year at $7,500 each

Please nominate ‘Men’s Health & Wellbeing Day’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.

After running a pilot culture camp at Bunjalong in northern NSW, Babana hopes to offer more urban youths the opportunity of going to the bush to connect with new and traditional culture, values and activities. The boys are supervised and guided by respected elders, both local and from Redfern, further reinforcing cultural and community connections and positive role models within our community. Many of these boys never otherwise leave Redfern.

On the camps, the boys can learn about Bunjalong country, its lores, the stars, when best to catch an echidna and how to float for miles down a river. They can catch fish with their bare hands, camp and hunt. Most importantly, they learn how to be still, to heal, to get past hurt and anger with conversation and they can share stories without distraction.

1 week Culture Camp including bus, tent, food & fuel @ $700 each person

Please nominate ‘Babana Culture Camp’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.

The maritime industry has proven to be particularly effective for Aboriginal youth, exposing them to a culture of work, acceptance of the chain of command and self-discipline.The most accessible entry point into the maritime industry is a TAFE Certificate 1 course.

Thanks to traineeships through Tribal Warrior Association, 700 kids have attained this standard. In our community where the attainment of formal education or employment qualifications is still too much the exception rather than the rule, most of these qualifications went to young people unlikely to have completed alternative formal training.

Initially available only to Aboriginal kids, the TWA traineeships have been so popular and successful that our trainees have proposed that their underprivileged non-Aboriginal neighbours should be also be subsidised, so the entire community can experience the process and training together.

The course has built confidence among participants who in turn bring a new element of work culture and self-sufficiency into their homes. For some, the positive experience has inspired continuation into more advanced or other training fields and all the opportunities they offer.

However there are always more applicants than positions and we have to turn too many kids away.

Increase TAFE ‘Certificate 1’ Training by 40 positions @ $1000 per student

Please nominate ‘Provide More Training; Create More Careers’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.

Each year the Tribal Warrior Association brings together thousands of Aboriginal people for some rare recreation time, a time of reinforcement of cultural identity and connection within and between communities.

These events take place on board Tribal Warrior vessels and are open to all who are in need: carers of the elderly and disabled; foster kids; children from other suburbs who’ve seldom if ever been on the harbour and rarely leave their own neighbourhoods; children from remote regions; elderly residents; non-indigenous children who are in DOCS care; and the homeless. For all who attend, these outings are deserved and memorable.

Currently, Tribal Warrior provides the vessels, fuel, crew, staff and refreshments that make these community days without so much as a charge for out of pocket expenses.

With a little help we could run more of these days and divert the associated resources into other equally needed employment and training programs.

For one outing, we need $1500

Please nominate ‘Help Them to Help Others’ in the ‘Purpose’ field at the top of the PayPal donations page when you donate.