Kunawarritji ranger station and surrounds has been busy, busy, busy. They’ve installed a new car wash, three ‘slow down’ signs, and finished off the ‘Kinyu rangers’ mural. Not to mention implementing a ‘Home improvements Raffle’ for lucky community members!

Participants of the Martu Leadership Program (MLP) came together at Roy Hill. One senior elder commented “For me now, I’m really proud of all you leadership mob, we’ve struggled through our life and we try to find a way to solve these problems. But you can’t do it alone. We need that one voice to push it along — let’s work together and let’s see what good comes out.” 

More than 50 Martu of all ages — including ranger teams, families, school children and artists — came together for KJ’s first ever Language Camp! 

Martu have visited Roebourne Regional Prison every month over the last six months to lead an ongoing conversation about alcohol. 

The rangers are forming firm friendships with the crew members from the Department of Biodiversity and Conservation fire crews of the Swan Coastal District. 

KJ’s applied linguist, Duke (Garry Earl-Spurr), recently visited the University of Western Australia (UWA) to give a seminar about KJ’s language program. He spoke to the audience about where Martu are from, and about how Martu are still looking after the languages they belong to the “right-way”.

VIC Police received the national request to reduce Aboriginal deaths in custody and by default, assumed reducing Aboriginal incarceration was a parallel objective. Their first steps? They invited one of KJ’s team over to learn more about the work between the MLP and WA police and the success of this program.

The Punmu Women & Families Program (WFP) team came together with Rawa Primary School, Punmu Home and Community Care (HACC) and the Martu Female Ranger team to dig and clean out the Jila Jila spring. When it was time to work, everyone got stuck in — some taking it in turns with the big shovels while the younger kids worked slowly (but surely) with toy shovels!

The Women & Families Program is in full swing and the team are using the Abecedarian Approach to early childhood education! They also received a visit from rangers and older school kids and together looked for minyarra: a small sweet bush onion.

Vehicle inspections are an important job for the rangers. To start, a large tarp has to be laid down before work can begin to ensures tools and parts don’t get lost. But these checks would fall monthly, sometimes daily. So it was no surprise when the rangers devised a solution — the Kunawarritji car wash!