Vision
The Gurrumul Yunupingu Foundation’s vision is to alleviate poverty, ill-health and substance abuse, disadvantage, lack of education and employment opportunities, bullying and youth suicide in remote communities.
Mission
Our mission is to carry out and achieve our vision by engaging young people in remote communities in activities that build on their strengths, enable them to contribute to culturally vibrant and sustainable communities and give them hope for the future, through approaches which include:
- Engaging young people by supporting community-initiated and managed programs;
- Supporting artistic, traditional, and contemporary community projects and developing artistic partnerships with mainstream industry bodies;
- Building on the strengths and existing skills of young people in the visual arts, music, dance, social media and IT, sport, cultural knowledge, and languages;
- Assisting young people with income generation and social support;
- Respecting community approaches to learning and the dissemination of information.
Key Principles
The Foundation strongly believes that change can be achieved through adherence to the following key principles, as points of difference, from much current service delivery.
Programs must:
- be community devised and driven, with long term planning and longevity always the goal;
- value the importance of community languages, the inherent cultural knowledge they embrace, and celebrate their use;
- employ Indigenous artists and trainers, especially from the local communities involved in the program, alongside guest/visiting artists, specialists, and trainers;
- ensure that guest program leaders have appropriate cross-cultural awareness and knowledge and the support of local language speakers on the ground;
- build community capacity to continue activities so skills remain in the community and can ultimately lower the cost of delivery in remote locations.
