In June this year I was privileged to visit Yirkalla community in Arnhem Land to do some filming for the Tarnanthi arts festival. Walking into the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre in Yirkalla is breathtaking. A remote and proud community surrounded by Top End termite mounds, pandanus, forest fires and croc filled water holes, the arts centre is an inspired explosion of bark art, ochres and burial poles. Yirkalla is home to the original bark painting presented to Parliament to begin the first land title claim in Australia. An inspiring location to be filming elder and acclaimed artist, Nawurapu Wunungmurra as he passed on his knowledge of carving Mukoy (spirits) to his grandson. This beautiful film was produced and edited by Closer Productions and filmed by Gus Kemp.

Travelling with BKFA in Uganda we met the most incredible role model, Mama Cecilia, a powerhouse in her own right, mother and grandmother of many, and long time activist for women’s rights. Mama Cecilia started Teso Women’s Peace Activists in her own home district in regional Uganda. She has fought for land rights for women, and the right for women to have safe births and to be free from domestic violence. Droughts have recently impacted the area, and Mama Cecilia’s team continue, with the resources they can pull together, to travel to remote areas reminding women to speak up about their rights in the most challenging of environments. I am reminded of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s belief: “Stories can be used to empower and humanise. Stories can repair broken dignity”. I am hoping one day I can return and spend more time exploring more of what Mama Cecilia and TEWPA do.

“We have given the women the sense

to demand what is rightly theirs”.

Mama Cecilia