Men’s Wellbeing Project Launched!

The Ngadju Dancers kicked off the event with several dances to bring culture to the forefront, before the formal speeches were underway.

 

The rain spat, wind howled, and the temperature dropped, but nothing could hold back the warm outpouring that the Puntu Pirni Palya project created.

 

CEO Sue Hanson spoke about the inception of the project as it was inspired by James Schultz, Snr ‘Beaman’. It is a local men’s response to the Federal Government’s Closing the Gap strategy. The project is about men being resourced to work with their own men through culture and language. Funding is kindly provided for 3 years by the Department of Social Services.

 

Reference group members, Stephen Morrison and Gavin Murray, both spoke about how they did not hesitate to join the project as it is by First Nations men, about First Nations men, for First Nations men.

 

Les Schultz officially launched the project with an address to the audience about how First Nations men are not ‘broken’ and do not need ‘mending’. They need resourcing to show their strength and with which to help each other. That their strength comes through culture and language. The PPP project provides the resource for cultural leaders to work with men in a way that has been undertaken for many thousands of years.

 

Les spoke of the inspirational cultural leadership provided by Beaman, and how he spent his life engaging men and boys with and through culture. His joy of culture, and in particular dance and artefacts, was infectious.

 

The PPP project was officially launched as a Beaman Legacy Project, with the unveiling of a plaque to be attached to the side of the truck.

 

Thank you to everyone who braved the weather for the launch!