Dampier Peninsula’s Community Navigators Empowering Kimberley Families through their Aboriginalled Woombooriny Amboon Angarriiya Partnership Initiative (WAAPI)

The Dampier Peninsula is home to a pristine coastal landscape and rugged country with diverse and abundant marine life, flora, and fauna. Valuable Aboriginal cultural knowledge, traditions, and science are still shared and practiced, while local tourism and industry opportunities are poised for growth.

Throughout this unique and beautiful region, an exciting project led by the Aboriginal people of Beagle Bay, Djarindjin, Lombadina, and Ardyaloon communities called WAAPI – the Woombooriny Amboon Angarriiya Partnership Initiative is taking shape. It aims to empower Aboriginal families and improve outcomes for their children, young people, and families living across the Dampier Peninsula region.

WAAPI’s focus is on creating strong families, strong leaders, and strong communities with an Indigenous governance family empowerment model. This provides a model for a ‘voice’ to facilitate local decision-making and ensure Aboriginal-led, designed, and delivered positive social change.

Dampier Peninsula families see WAAPI offering a new movement for Aboriginal people to lead the way forward in their relationships with community elders, families, children, and young people. Furthermore, this enables their leadership in relationships with government, businesses, organisations, and other Aboriginal communities. Hence, this Aboriginal-led, place-based approach is signifying an important step forward for strengthening and building collaborative and empowered Kimberley Aboriginal families and communities. It also enhances their ability to work with the government to stimulate policy and systematic change.