My Rural Story

That was a real wake up, I thought they were just laughing at me, which they were, but the council president came around and said ‘finally, Yapa, you’re doing something useful, thank you, thank you, thank you’. I went: ‘OK, if I’d have known it was that easy I would have run over a few kangaroos a bit earlier.’ Did you have any ‘aha’ moments working in rural and remote areas? When I realised reasonably early on ‘actually I know very little’. Certainly, after spending long amounts of time in rural and remote communities, I realised that I actually knew less than when I started. I think that was probably a key moment. I think also, in order to be a culturally safe practitioner you have to be respectful. That can be really hard because not everybody is nice and not every person you’re meeting with and engaging with is going to give you the same courtesy...

Be respectful of other people, they might not do or think or look the same as you. But, none the less, mind your manners and be respectful. Listen. Shut up and listen. I thinkthatwouldbemythirdpieceof advice. Something I find surprisingly easy to do. What has been one of your best experiences working in these remote communities? One of the experiences that was the most salutary forme in terms of going, ‘aha!’was having a little epiphany was many years ago - probably about fifteen years ago. I was in a remote Indigenous community, about 500ks north east of Darwin; a big community, about 3,000 people. I was working with a couple of women who were managing a diabetic support group, a support group for people with diabetes. We were going up to the other end of the island that was about two or three hours drive. Somehow, I ended up driving the big troop carrier. Amazingly enough, we started with three people, ended up with about 15 including my two kids - they were always coming with me. Anyway, driving, driving, driving, we get to this big, what we call a jump up, a bit over a sandy rise. BANG! Straight into this wallaby, killed it. I was traumatised! I was a vegetarian, my oldest son was traumatised because he hated seeing things hurt. But the rest of the people who were there were so happy. That story is still told today, how after all those years, Robyn finally did something useful.

Which is a good thing because it takes the pressure off and it also means that, you know, non-Indigenous people have a

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