Families and Community
As a major town in East Arnhem land, Galiwin’ku has a large population of transient residents that split their time between the town and very remote outstations/homelands. As such, the reach of these programs, and Galiwin’ku Women’s Space, is extensive. We hope to also learn from and inspire fellow remote Indigenous communities that share similar experiences with family violence.
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The clients of our services are primarily women and children from Galiwin’ku. Their family members, both men and women, will be indirect recipients of the services through the outreach and case management components.
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Community Education
GWS will facilitate a range of community education sessions aimed at informing all community members about the underlying drivers of domestic and family violence to inspire community led initiatives for change. Already, members have brought activities surrounding identifying violence to the local school for senior students to learn from.
Community Events
Since 2017 GWS has been running annual International Women’s Day ‘Ladies Night Out’ event where all women in Galiwin’ku are invited to a fun night of dressing up, dancing, and celebrating each other and our achievements.
GWS also participates in multi-agency events such as workshops, markets, school camps, and expos to promote our work and engage with the community.
Laundromat
A community Laundromat will be part of the new building. The service design is still in development, but the goal is to provide access to industrial washing and drying machines for the entire community to benefit from.
Young Women’s Camp Fire Night Program
The campfire program started as informal meetings amongst teenage girls to talk about their relationships, their worries, really anything on their mind. Two young women that worked at GWS ran the sessions, providing food and a campfire for their peers to join. As the program grew, the women working identified specific groups, such as the different women’s footy teams, to have campfire nights with. They also developed educational activities to do while having conversations about topics like consent and violence. This program will hopefully run again once we move into the new building.
Outside of the Galiwin'ku Community
GWS engage regularly with the DFV service network in the NT and Australia through attending forums, conferences, and workshops all over the country. Our members are often invited as guest speakers which makes us very proud! This is an opportunity for our members to gain new experiences and build their confidence.
Gurrutu-centred support
Details on how we incorporate Gurrutu in our services is currently being developed and will be published soon!
Yolŋu Pride Family Centre
There is an extremely high rate of domestic, family and sexual violence in Galiwin’ku and surrounding homelands, especially for the LGBTQIA+ community. Sadly, incidents of violence and abuse against our LGBTQ+ clients are so prevalent that it has become an inevitable and innocuous part of everyday life.
There was no safe space for the Sistagirls on the Island until Galiwinku Women Space started the Sistagirls Well-being Program in 2022. We are now the Galiwin’ku Pride Family, encompassing our ever-expanding members questioning or identifying within the LGBTQ+ community across North East Arnhem Land.
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Every Tuesday night, 4pm - 7pm we have have our Yolŋu Family Pride Nights where we gather in a safe, inclusive environment. During our evenings together we share self-care tools, i.e. physical, mental and sexual health and wellbeing resources, and education.
On 28th May 2023 GWS hosted our inaugural LGTBQ+ DV Awareness Event. Our Pride Family members invited a safe person/people to join them in sharing LGTBQ+ DV information, our Sydney world Pride Video, ngatha (food) and a special dance performance from the group.
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There are nine Yolŋu communities within North East Arnhem Land and five are located on Islands. Geographically the remoteness from mainland services and resources already marginalises our Yolŋu communities.
Our grassroots goals seek to connect and build a physical presence for our Pride Family in each of these communities lead by the six Sistagirls that attended Sydney World Pride 2023.
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