Nominations are now open for the NT Government’s First Circles Leadership Program. The First Circles Program focuses on identifying, mentoring and supporting Indigenous emerging leaders from remote communities across the Northern Territory.

Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) President Adrian Dixon was an inaugural appointee to First Circles in 2015, followed by the then team leader of the Yuendumu Mediation and Justice Program Robert Robertson in 2016. In 2018 Reanna Campbell, the then CDRC administration officer in the Yuelamu Council Office, also went through the First Circles Program.

If you are an Indigenous Australian and live in a remote community you can nominate yourself or someone you know and nominations are open from now until Friday 27 November 2020.

To find out more or to nominate, you can visit aboriginalaffairs.nt.gov.au

Main Photo: CDRC President Adrian Dixon went through the First Circles Program in 2015.

Reanna Campbell went through the First Circles Program in 2018.

The Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) Community Development Program (CDP) hosted roadshows in five of the nine CDRC communities in September to inform communities that the CDP is currently delivering COVID-19 safe face-to-face services to job seekers, operating at the ‘Increased Servicing’ stage. Job seeker attendance to activities and appointments is voluntary during this period, with no compliance applied if they choose not to attend.

During the roadshows, program staff made contact with jobseekers, school children, residents and stakeholders in Laramba, Ti Tree region, Willowra, Yuelamu and Yuendumu to let people know the program’s level of servicing through the COVID-19 period. Even the oldies from the Yuendumu Aged Care Program turned up at the CDP activity centre on one of the afternoons.

Job seekers who had kept regular phone contact with the program through the COVID-19 pandemic and attended the roadshow in their community were celebrated. Job seekers also had the opportunity to take part in a quiz as part of the program. It was a month of activities with lots of planning, handwashing, walking, talking and barbequing.

Photo: Lino Odwa, Caesar Tilmouth, Billy Briscoe, Martin Hagan, Tristan Wako and Jerome Glen in Laramba during the CDP roadshow.