Denise Karpany (South Australia)

Chairperson

I am a descendant from the Ngarrindjeri, Narungga, Kaurna and Adnyamathanha People’s from South Australia.  I am one of eight children and lived in Adelaide all of my life.

My early years of schooling were at Ferryden Park and Brompton Primary Schools.  I completed my secondary school certificate at Croydon High School.  I attended Adelaide TAFE and received a Community Services Certificate as well as the advanced Certificate in Child Care.  I also have a Certificate in Management Practices, which was done in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Management and the Gibaran Management Consultants.

I have been a FATSIL Member since 1995 and have represented South Australia on the Governing Committee as a Delegate in the capacity of both the Chairperson Vice Chairperson.

I have had a long involvement in the maintenance, revival and preservation of Aboriginal Languages for many years.  I was an inaugural member of the Board of Management of Yaitya Warra Wodli Language Centre Incorporated, and more recently as an employee in the Project Officer / Field Worker and Manager’s positions.

My vision and dreams for the future are to ensure the development of both an Indigenous Languages Policy at both the State / Territory and National levels, as well as a movement towards a legislative base for the traditional languages of Australia.

Garth Agius (South Australia)

I was involved in FATSIL in the early days and have just recently come back. The organisation has grown bigger and better, and I am excited and honoured to be working with the committee once again.

I have also been involved in the beginnings of the SA Language Centre, (Yaitya Warra Wodli) where exciting new changes are also taking place.

M 0422 757 293

John Atkinson (Victoria)

Vice Chairperson

Education Officer for the Koori Heritage Trust. John is a Bangerang man, who has been involved in language programs for many years.

John is a founding member of Victorian Aboriginal Languages Corporation.

In Victoria we have seen communities take language programs from a stage of retrieval and revival, right up to producing dictionaries and actually teaching the language. That has been a very worthwhile process even though we still have only a small number of communities involved. It’s really important that we continue to support and encourage our communities in this work. I’ve recently rejoined the FATSIL committee after a few years away, and I find the changes very exciting. The future looks good.

P 03 8622 2600
M 0418 327 283

Doris Paton (Victoria)

Treasurer

I am a Gunai/ Monaro Ngarigo woman, mother and grandmother whose family lives and works in Gippsland. My life is strong in culture and family, these are the cornerstone to who I am. I have grown up knowing language and cultural knowledge from both my mother and father country. I speak language from both Gunai and Monaro Ngarigo and I have been teaching language in context in our community program to children and adults for 8 years.

I have been an active committee member to the Victorian Aboriginal Corporation for Languages for the past 4 years and the Victorian State Representative in an executive position on FATSIL for 4 years. I look forward to continuing the work of reviving our languages.

P 03 5122 3544
M 0407 862 908

Barbara McGillivray (Western Australia)

Secretary

I have lived and worked in the Goldfields all my life and have a grown family. I have travelled all over WA and other states and met many people who work in the language & culture areas.

Its vitally important that we remember that the younger generations are our future and so too are our Elders, who we must listen to and hear their stories being told.
I am involved in a range of voluntary community work, which at the moment extends to:

    * The City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder’s Reconciliation Committee
    * Wankanyi Ngurra Tjurta Aboriginal Corporation Language Centre
    * Secretary of the FATSIL

I intend to continue in the struggle to fight for justice and our rights to have our languages recognised and acknowledged as the first languages of this Nation.

P 08 9022 7144
M 0419 494 118

Melinda Holden (Queensland) (Resigned 2007)

I have lived in Townsville for the past 12 years. I am currently working on my family languages of Gurang and Warrgamay.

My involvement with language is:
    * Diploma in the Indigenous Languages
    * FATSIL Committee member
    * Member of the RALMC for the Townsville/Cairns regions for 3 years.

My focus for language betterment is:
    * Lobby the Queensland Government to implement an Indigenous Language Policy.
    * Establishment and structure of a State Language Reference Group.
    * Management and storage for a Queensland database of all listed Languages, resources, research and language workers.

P 07 4725 7799

Lois Blackman

Lois Blackman (Queensland)

My name is Lois Blackman and I am a Goorang Goorang / Gurang woman who lives in the city of Bundaberg. I am currently secretary of the board on the Gurang Land Council and have held this position for 18 months. I also sit on various other Cultural Heritage organisations in the central Queensland districts. I believe language is an important part of our culture and one of my goals is to involve more of our community in the revival and maintenance of our indigenous languages.

As a committee member I strive towards having a culture which would include our language in its full entirety for our children to inherit.

P 07 4154 3465
M 0409 472 224 

Kevin Lowe

Kevin Lowe (New South Wales)(Resigned 2007)

I believe that FATSIL has picked up the mantle given to it by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and become their key organisation to advise and advocate for our languages with governments across Australia.

The direction FATSIL has recently taken has supported the significant language programs which have been initiated in NSW.

It is important that FATSIL and its NSW members and language communities work together to grow language opportunities in the future.

P 02 9367 8198
M 0419 129 159 / 0429 420 359

Ken Walker

Ken Walker (New South Wales)

I became involved with Aboriginal languages, Gumbaynggirr in particular, in a formal sense when I, and several others, attended classes at Sherwood, near Kempsey, in 1990 being run by Br. Steve Morelli. After graduating we attempted to set up a part-time language class at Macksville TAFE and then applied for accreditation through VETAB for a full-time language which started at Nambucca Heads – Muurrbay Aboriginal Language & Culture Cooperative in 1997. I have been employed as Chairperson / teacher since 1997.

I have been attending language conferences in this capacity on a regional, State and Federal level ever since. I, through Muurrbay, have been involved with the formulation of the Aboriginal Language Policy for the NSW Government and its subsequent translation into a syllabus for NSW schools that was done by the Board of Studies. In my time with FATSIL I have seen the growth in NSW of interest in language revival and Muurrbay has always placed itself in a position to talk to and offer advice to people interested in language revival. Muurrbay is now conducting classes in local schools from pre-school to High School as well as TAFE at CHEC – Coffs Harbour Education Campus.

P 02 6569 4294
F 02 6569 4295
M 0428 400 774

Sahardi Garling

Sahardi Garling (Northen Territory)

Sahardi Garling from Katherine, NT has been a member of the Diwurruwurru-Jaru Aboriginal Corporation for a number of years.

His work with the committee has involved supporting the research and recording of languages, interpreting services, school and community based language teaching programs and exploring new ideas for use in language and culture programs. Sahardi has a strong focus on supporting youth in his area, and sees the promotion of language and culture as vital to developing self esteem in the local community.

P 08 8971 1233
F 08 8971 0561

Eddie Chisholm (Northern Territory)

I was born in Darwin 1971 I lived through the destruction of cyclone Tracy.  In 1975 our family moved to southern Arnhem Land where my father began working for Essential services at the Barunga community (formally known as Bamily) and then on to Maningrida community in northern Arnhem Land.  My mother worked as a school teacher.  These two communities are where I began my education, attending pre-school and the majority of my primary schooling. I am very thankful and fortunate to grow up in these places, close to my traditional origins.  This has had a huge influence on my career.  As I look back now I realize how crucial these years were when I was young and naïve.  It has been a solid grounding or me that I can not forget.

Other communities I would consider to be of equal importance and influential on my identity would have to be Ngukurr community (Roper River Mission, southeast Arnhem Land) where most of my immediate family come from.  Then Lajamanu in the north Tanami desert where my father and mother worked when I completed my secondary schooling in Adelaide.  Going home to Lajamanu from boarding school in Adelaide was an amazing experience, I find it hard to comprehend even now one world to another ( I have no regrets about this).  Ngukurr is where I found who I was and where I came from, my grandfathers from this region were truly unbelievable.  They took me in under their wings, gave me knowledge, and helped me to understand things which I could not find answers to by myself.  They taught me such things as my aboriginal name and my skin name; which is Cojok, and my totem; which is the Goanna as is my father’s and my sonss totem.  They taught me what their skin is also, my mothers skin and her totem and every other member of our family.  Through these simple teachings I have come to realize, apply to all of us, and how they are of great relevance to our culture, even more so now, in today's confusing and changing times.

I have worked in the media for channel 9 in Darwin (NTD8) and Imparja television in Alice Springs.  I have also lectured in television and radio production for a Bachelor Institute through out the NT, and assisting those from remote communities.  This coincided whilst working and living at Ngukurr community for several years with the council and CDEP programs there.  Being an integral part of putting languages back into the Ngukurr CEC (Community Education Centre), this was one of my more gratifying achievements.  Now up to five languages are taught to the kids there, it is ongoing, and very much a part of their school curriculum.  The other main contribution in my work experience has been working for the Aboriginal Legal Services in the Katherine and Miwatj regions of the NT as a para legal/field officer.  This allowed me to travel a lot into the country I was so familiar with, this I enjoyed very much, even though the circumstance of trying to interpret this new law to natural law became extremely difficult at times.  My biggest asset for this job was being able to talk and understand language on both sides of the fence.  I can only encourage others especially our youth to learn as many languages as possible, this has been our biggest down fall for both black and white in this country, not being able to communicate with each other.  If now is the time for reconciliation then we must understand and respect each others cultures.

Theresa Sainty. Palawa Kani (Somerset, Tasmania)

Theresa has worked with the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre for fourteen years and is now its Senior Aboriginal Language Worker. She has been a member of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Land Council and the State Aboriginal Housing Committee. After training with linguist Leo Edwardsson and researcher Annie Reynolds, Theresa is now researching the palawa kani language to help it become accessible to children in Tasmanian schools.

James Akee (Torres Strait Island - Homeland)

I am a 56 year old Meriam (from Mer Island) Torres Strait. I have a wife, five daughters and seventeen grand- children. I have been studying my language for the past four years formally at the Batchelor Institute in Northern Territory and with Meriam Elders on Mer - getting to speak Meriam Mir (the name of the Meriam language)fluently.

I work for my local council on various projects and I am heavily involved with community work. This year (2006) I have enrolled at Curtin University to undertake a degree in Indigenous Community Management and Development Program - which I feel will strengthen my community involvement. I have been involved with community organisations since 1972 but I always look forward to learning new things every day from Elders and youth I associate with.

My vision for the future is to continue assisting my community and to preserve my language and culture which is the catalyst of my identity. Language is very important to me as it is a divine gift from the Creator. I hope in some way that all of us at FATSIL continue to work towards preserving and maintaining our diversified languages of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia.

 Matilda House (Australian Capital Territory)