We took new board member Kevin Kalinko out to visit the community of Yirrkala as well as the Bawaka Homeland. We had meetings with Yirrkala School, Miwatj Health and Rirratjingu Aboriginal Corporation. Kevin wrote an incredible summary of his visit and already shared that with the board.

Yirrkala School visit was fantastic and they have since had the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Logistics (DIPL) visit the school which will unlock the way forward for the concrete footings slab to proceed (that the NPF has already paid for). The school is very excited to get the Food Ladder greenhouse and one of their teachers has a horticulture background and he will take the lead on the curriculum learnings for the kids.

Miwatj Health had their full board meeting and they allowed Nova to present at it which was fantastic. They have agreed to allow the Nova Peris Foundation to get base line data annually to help with our reporting. This will include things like scabies presentations, rheumatic heart disease numbers, diabetes patients etc. It will all be anonymous data to protect the identities of community members but will help us further show the impacts of having a community laundry and more fresh food being consumed.

Rirratjingu Aboriginal Corporation meeting was warm and friendly as always. We are still awaiting the sublease from them which is a little bit frustrating but it is the process we have to abide by. RAC have once again committed to us that the site will be ours to utilise. Northern Land Council are the ones that will grant the lease but they can’t yet until the mapping of songlines is completed. We have been granted permission to put up our banners and signage on the fence of the site as well as commence some site cleanup
and minor general maintenance tasks.