Footprints In Aboriginal Documentation
28 January, 2008Rekindling the Spirit has confirmed an extended documentation process with Footprint Directions
Footprint Directions was pleased to document the extraordinary work that Rekindling the Spirit achieves from Lismore, NSW Australia. Rekindling the Spirit, based in the Northern Rivers, provides intensive support, counselling and family services to Aboriginal men and women, and indirectly to their children. Their work is difficult to describe, highly intuitive and flexible, and covers a wide range of needs in the Aboriginal communities in which they work. See www.rekindlingthespirit.org.au for more information.
Our editorial job documenting the "Rekindling Guide" took 18 months and has resulted in the production of Australia's first 200 page guide to running a comprehensive healing project for Aboriginal families. As Donna Hensen, Rekindling the Spirit's Team Leader and Women's Family Worker, powerfully identified, "Rekindling the Spirit is the only organisation that is empowered to offer its service to vulnerable Aboriginal people in a culturally sensitive way. Rekindling the Spirit has earned the right and freedom to provide what is needed. This is the difference we make." In documenting often highly sensitive and spiritual healing practices, Rekindling the Spirit has identified what parts of their work are replicable in other Aboriginal organisations, and what parts remain intrinsically sacred and undocumentable. Rekindling's origins were in the late 1990s, working with clients of the Department of Community Services (NSW) and Dept of Corrective Services. They're now funded or supported by all levels of government.
Statistical data, therapeutic outlines and strategies, and photographs of Aboriginal men, women and their families demonstrate the extraordinary healing work of this organisation's work - in urban and rural environments. Photos taken on retreats and camps give a hint of the highly spiritual and creative work done with men and women, many of whom have grown up in traumatic circumstances, including being separated from their families as children. Rekindling The Spirit is partially funded through the Australian Office of Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Health with its "Bringing Them Home" Stolen Generation project work.
The Rekindling Guide is available from Rekindling The Spirit - PO Box 535, LISMORE NSW 2480, Australia or via email to: welcome@rekindlingthespirit.org.au.
Manager and founding member of the service, Greg Telford is the primary contributor and his work over the past ten years is a testimony to the extraordinary work a committed, transparent and unique service can provide within community partnerships.
Footprint Directions continues its documentation and management support to the Board of Directors during 2009. Footprints was training the team at Rekindling The Spirit in 2008 and its own employee, Aboriginal social scientist, Cathy Hillard to take on this work themselves. This will enable stronger skills development in this proudly black organisation to develop as it moves from strength to strength. This builds beautifully on the work of founding director, Greg Telford, whose efforts in addressing family violence through personal example and healing is an inspiration to hundreds of Bundjalung, Widjimbal and Kamilaroi families.
For further information, contact jane@footprintdirections.com or ring Rekindling The Spirit on 61-2-6622 5534.