News from Around the Region

A supplementary election for the Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) ward of Akityarre is coming up in March. Below are a few important dates:

In December 2021, the Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) Community Development Program (CDP) collaborated with Civil Train NT and Centre for Appropriate Technology (CfAT) to deliver Introduction to Civil Construction training in Ti Tree. This was delivered as a joint initiative between Civil Train and CfAT under the NT Government’s Job Trainer program.

Ziah Webb dressed as Santa with the winning entry by Marie Ross.

Atitjere Community celebrated Christmas with its annual Christmas parade.

The event was a great success and was well received by the whole community. Children’s Ground provided the food for the BBQ and Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) set up the community BBQ trailer for use on the night. The cooks were local ladies supported by Children’s Ground staff.

Santa made a surprise visit to Nyirripi Aged Care.

 Yesterday’s Nyirripi Christmas party was a wonderful way to finish off the challenging year, with a full house of smiles and Christmas spirit backed by the traditions of old with carols, tinsel, lights, bon-bons and full bellies. The food was amazing and in spite the larger numbers than expected, a plate or two of left overs was had by all to take home.

Anmatjere has won the Best Small Community award in the 2021 Territory Sustainable Communities Tidy Towns awards, run by Keep Australia Beautiful NT.

Engawala and Laramba also got in on the action with Litter Management commendations awarded to both communities, making it two in a row for Engawala.

Works Team Leader Mack Murphy cutting the Yuelamu Aged Care facility grass earlier this month.Yuelamu has received nice rain over the month of November, resulting in fast growing thick green grass around the entire community of Yuelamu.

Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) Field Officers have been working tirelessly over the past month cutting the fresh green grass for the community residents to have access to the available facilities in Yuelamu, including contracted agencies.

Natalie Petrick – Community Safety Patrol, and Di Schrader – Atitjere Administration Officer, using the face mask disposal boxThe Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) office in Atitjere has a box especially for the disposal of face masks. Staff take the box straight out to the cardboard pit at the landfill for burning, with no risk of masks floating out from the landfill.

“The box is burned as well so there isn’t any risk of staff handling used masks. There are always heaps of cardboard boxes between us and the store!” said Warren Kenney, Manager, Council Services Delivery – East.

“Community members seem to be getting on board with the mask wearing and are happy that they can safely get rid of used masks,” he added.

It has been over two years since Yuelamu represented Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) at the Southern Cup Basketball Tournament in Alice Springs. The competition happened on the weekend of 30-31 October and involved playing games of 5X5 (five a side) as well as 3X3 (three a side using half the court).

Supported by Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) Youth Sport and Recreation (YSR), the Yuelamu B team won the 3X3 competition, and the main team came third in the full court game.

The players also received a training session on how to umpire and gained some valuable skills to use back home.

At the end of October 2021, the Commercial Services team from Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) converged in Alice Springs for in-house training.

In one of the sessions of the training the team reviewed the upcoming changes to employment services in regional and remote Australia; particularly, Government’s decision to change the Community Development Program (CDP) to a new remote jobs program in 2023. There was also a representative from the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) Central Australia office Engagement Team who attended a session to talk about the provider performance review process.