Nine Aboriginal women who haveeach worked tirelessly for decades educating Central Australian children willtonight be recognised with special certificates recognising their length ofservice.
The Warlipri women, five ofwhom are retiring at the end of the 2019 school year, will be presented withtheir certificates tonight by Minister for Education, Selena Uibo, in AliceSprings, as part of World Teachers Day celebrations.
The nine women work atcommunity schools within the Warlipri triangle, including Nyirrpi, Yuendemu,Willowra and Lajamanu.
Their contributions over manyyears have given countless Walrpiri children a solid start in life, and hasalso been the backbone of the regions strong bilingual and biculturalcurriculum.
The nine women beingrecognised include:
Fiona Gibson
Barbara Martin
Yamurna (Nancy) Oldfield
Maisie Kitson
Valerie Patterson
Marlkirdi Rose
Helen Morton
Sharon Anderson
Tess Ross
Quotesattributable to Minister for Education, Selena Uibo.
For thousands of generations,the Warlpiri people have maintained strong language, culture, traditions,customs and laws and thanks to the tireless work of these eight educators, theyremain strong to this day.
I would like to thank thesestrong Aboriginal women for being such exceptional leaders in theircommunities, for inspiring Warlpiri children and for helping guide manygenerations of children on their paths to bright futures.
I am very proud to presentthese ladies with certificates recognising their length of service, as theyhave blazed the trail for up and coming Aboriginal educators, by being leadersin their schools and their communities.
They have also shown howstrong communities can be when Aboriginal people are given the opportunity tocontribute to their own learning.
The Territory LaborGovernment is restoring local decision making to remote communities, because,as the contributions of these ladies has shown, local decisions are the bestdecisions.
