Hundreds of remote WA students gather in Warakurna to celebrate Indigenous culture

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Hundreds of school students from remote desert communities in Western Australia have gathered to celebrate Indigenous culture. Giulia Bertolillo reports from Warakurna.

Transcript

00:00I'm at what may be one of the most remote school carnivals in Australia, the annual

00:08Desert Dust-Up Festival in Moerakono. More than 200 students from eight surrounding aboriginal

00:15communities have come here for three days of sport, arts and connecting to culture.

00:22They are all from the Nananzara lands, a remote area about the size of the UK. We spoke with

00:28kids from Kiwikata who spent two days on a bus just to get here, and others who are just

00:34really excited about the event.

00:37My name is Adamina and I'm from Blackstone, Babolongwooda community, and it took like

00:43an hour to come here. And it was fun, we saw a lot of camels and sand hills.

00:48And what languages do you speak?

00:51Nganandara and Pitandara and English.

00:56Different aboriginal languages are spoken in this region, but the event is run in English

01:01so everyone can understand.

01:04Students only speak English language and culture when they come to the school, but in their

01:08own communities they're very much in their own cultural spaces and their language, so

01:13students are already multilingual before they come to school.

01:16Catering is a huge job. Schools in Perth made more than a tonne of food for the Nananzara

01:23students. Dust-up is the definite highlight of the school calendar, and students and teachers

01:30have spent weeks preparing. The benefits of this remote carnival will last long after

01:36the buses have made their way along the dusty desert roads back to their communities.

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