Homelands are communities established so that Aboriginal Peoples can maintain connection with their traditional, ancestral land. These communities have lower levels of social problems and significantly better health outcomes, and are home to around a third of the Aboriginal population of the Northern Territory.
The story of homelands is a story of people who are often left without a voice in the mainstream media. We'd like you to meet some of the people living on Utopia homelands in the hope that you can begin to understand what life on their traditional, ancestral land is like.
We'd like to share a message with you from Rosalie Kunoth-Monks, an Alyawarr/Anmatyerr elder and Utopia homelands resident as she looks back on over 70 years on the land. Rosalie explores the meaning of land to Aboriginal Peoples, looks at the past and present approaches of governments in Indigenous affairs, and urges a halt to the destruction of the oldest living culture in Australia.
For over three years we partnered with the Alyawarr and Anmatyerr communities of Utopia homelands to develop our report: The land holds us: Aboriginal Peoples' right to traditional homelands in the Northern Territory. Our report explores Aboriginal Peoples right to traditional land and the government's current policies of exclusion that are stripping funds from traditional Aboriginal homelands.
Aboriginal Peoples have occupied Australia for millennia, but did you know that most people in Australia have never met an Aboriginal person? Read on for our top 5 facts at the heart of the homelands debate.