Power of the Ngangkari - Ngankari’s Traditional Healers Practices, Proudly Sponsored by SA Health
Tracks
Ian McLachlan Room West
| Tuesday, October 25, 2022 |
| 11:20 AM - 11:40 AM |
Overview
Alison Carroll, Josephine Mick, Pantjiti Lewis - NPY Women’s Council
Speaker
Angela Lynch
NPY Women’s Council
Power of the Ngangkari - Ngankari’s Traditional Healers Practices, Proudly Sponsored by SA Health
Abstract
Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women’s Council’s (NPYWC) is a service delivery, advocacy and support organisation created by Anangu women from the 28 remote communities in the tristate border region of NT, SA and WA. NPYWC delivers services and programs working with Anangu to improve their health, wellbeing and safety.
The NPYWC Ngangkari Program supports a dynamic group of ngangkari (traditional healers) who are also highly respected artists, teachers, land managers and health workers. As well as applying their traditional skills as healers in their communities, they provide advice to Indigenous and non-Indigenous people outside their communities, using their extensive knowledge of culture and family. The Ngangkari program has received national and international acclaim including the Sigmund Freud Award of the World Council of Psychotherapy Congress in 2011, and the RANZCP 2009 Mark Sheldon Prize. Their book – ‘Traditional Healers of Central Australia: Ngangkari’, winner of a Deadly Award in 2013
Remoteness, limited services, language, literacy and cultural differences are the basis for many of the challenges faced by NPY Women's Council members. Trauma and mental health issues disproportionately affect many anangu (aboriginal people of this region) and can have a profound impact on children. NPYWC recognises that there are multiple knowledge systems in this region, as well as many languages, and that we need to share these understandings before we can develop effective responses to contemporary problems.
The NPY Women's Council Uti Kulintjaku is a multi-award-winning arts and social innovation project, initiated and led by senior Anangu women and ngangkari. Uti Kulintjaku works to address cycles of trauma and improve the mental health and wellbeing of Aboriginal people in remote desert communities, developing innovative arts and media to explore the psychosocial experiences of trauma and depression.
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The project strengthens the capacity of anangu women to address mental health and related issues in ways that draw on their strengths, traditional knowledge and culture as well as their new knowledge of western mental health. It strengthens the capacity of the local mental health team to engage with and communicate more effectively with anangu, to ‘see through their eyes’.
The NPYWC Ngangkari Program supports a dynamic group of ngangkari (traditional healers) who are also highly respected artists, teachers, land managers and health workers. As well as applying their traditional skills as healers in their communities, they provide advice to Indigenous and non-Indigenous people outside their communities, using their extensive knowledge of culture and family. The Ngangkari program has received national and international acclaim including the Sigmund Freud Award of the World Council of Psychotherapy Congress in 2011, and the RANZCP 2009 Mark Sheldon Prize. Their book – ‘Traditional Healers of Central Australia: Ngangkari’, winner of a Deadly Award in 2013
Remoteness, limited services, language, literacy and cultural differences are the basis for many of the challenges faced by NPY Women's Council members. Trauma and mental health issues disproportionately affect many anangu (aboriginal people of this region) and can have a profound impact on children. NPYWC recognises that there are multiple knowledge systems in this region, as well as many languages, and that we need to share these understandings before we can develop effective responses to contemporary problems.
The NPY Women's Council Uti Kulintjaku is a multi-award-winning arts and social innovation project, initiated and led by senior Anangu women and ngangkari. Uti Kulintjaku works to address cycles of trauma and improve the mental health and wellbeing of Aboriginal people in remote desert communities, developing innovative arts and media to explore the psychosocial experiences of trauma and depression.
.
The project strengthens the capacity of anangu women to address mental health and related issues in ways that draw on their strengths, traditional knowledge and culture as well as their new knowledge of western mental health. It strengthens the capacity of the local mental health team to engage with and communicate more effectively with anangu, to ‘see through their eyes’.
Biography
