Michelle’s dream job

Read more: Bilya Koort Boodya Q&A with Kathy Davis

The Avon Valley and Wheatbelt Advocate has sat down and interviewed some key personnel involved in Northam’s new Indigenous Environmental and Interpretive Centre, Bilya Koort Boodja. 

Here is our sit down with centre coordinator Michelle Winmar.

AVA: How did you get involved as centre coordinator?

Michelle: I was working for Wheatbelt NRM and they were going through restructuring and I may not have had a job there moving forward. This job was advertised and at first I didn’t think it was for me, but I had another look at it and went for it. To spoke to some friends and they said ‘Michelle you’s be great for it’. It’s become my dream job.

AVA: What is going to be the key aspects of your role?

Michelle: Obviously to oversee the centre and the shop and the hiring out. It will also be the development of the tour program where we will contract different Noongar people to do different aspects. We have so many Noongars in town who do wonderful things. We want to develop programs alongside these people who may find starting a business out of their comfort zone. We’re looking at artifact making at the reserve, we’ve got various sites within the Shire that you can take people to and tell stories. Noongar language and food is an experience we want to share with people in our programs. There’s no reason why later on we couldn’t be going that step further and having camp outs. You really need to do the story telling around the fire at night with stargazing. I’ll also be working with Michelle Blackhurst at the Shire of Northam on working for grants to develop the centre more. I will help develop the educational program for the schools. We’re already had calls about it from the local schools wanting to come and visit.

AVA: What will the centre be used for?

Michelle: Potentially that centre could be all things and that’s what we’re working towards. Now we’re madly focusing on the opening. We want it to have a real community presence so there are activities always going on and it’s busy. We will be working with the Shire looking at covering all sorts of programs for community. It’s Ballardong wide but also for those non-Aboriginals. For me it’s all about cultural and tourism development, community development in general, enterprise and economic development for our indigenous people and reconciliation. It will be available for anyone who wants to hire it out. We’re going to kick off a tourism program and hopefully get the buses to go through. There’ll be the tour program but also cross cultural training targeting the corporate companies in Perth. We want them to come out to the country and do it; have an experience. That’ll be another thing we’re looking at doing. We’ll have a souvenir shop. We’ve taken some local artists and put their work on items for sale. We’re looking to set up a royalties program so they get some money back for their work. We want to really develop the community for cultural tourism. The sky is the limit really. 

AVA: Why should the community embrace the centre and why should they come and visit? 

Michelle: It’s an opportunity for the whole Ballardong region, Noongar and non-Noongar community. It’s for Noongars to get in there and develop and grow. It’s an opportunity to come and have that conversation with Noongar people about their culture, because you wouldn’t normally have the chance to do so. They can take it one step further if they like. We can put on activities that will help you gain more understanding. There’s a lot of Wadjelas (white people) who say to us that they want to interact with Noongars but they don’t know how to. We want to take people from where they’re at. They can ask questions and can say anything. It’s how you learn. For Noongar people it will send them a message that they can come together with the Wadjelas and change their perception as well. 

AVA: What do you hope people can learn from the centre?

Michelle: I’m hoping they can learn all about Ballardong history and culture and appreciate it. At the end of the day wadjelas go home to wadjelas and Noongars go home to Noongars but we want to create that experience to bring them together a little bit more. We want to reach out to the skeptics and that’s why I’m so glad the Shire has given everyone a free pass. If we can, we hope to work with those people and bring them along for the ride and help change their perception. At the end of the day they’re entitled to their opinion and views but we want to help with living alongside Noonjars. They need to learn so they can better understand and interact.