Alice Springs Meeting Place Foundation Ltd. ABN 46 625 134 045
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News
May 2024
Mapping our past, imagining a better future.
Following on from our three sucessful community events last year, we have engaged in ongoing discussions with Arrernte people about the history of this town. Through the hosting of these conversations an idea emerged 'from the ground up' about creating a map of the town that tells the history and stories of significant places from an Arrernte perspective.
This map will highlight stories and places of Aboriginal resilience and innovation in the last century.
These positive stories matter deeply to the Arrernte people with whom we have been talking, and offer an alternate narrative to the very negative stories that they feel are usually told about their lives and this town. For them, this is as much truth telling as the sharing of historical or contemporary stories of horror, or lament.
To facilitate this exercise, we have engaged Kim Mahood, the well-known author, who has worked with a number of communities on maps similar to this one.
The project is underway and the map is currently being worked on. Once completed, it will be on display in Adelaide House to help locals and visitors alike hear the diverse and positive stories that make up life in this town.
Truth Telling Healing Circles
In January the Foundation provided food to support a group of Arrernte people and community members gather together with Professor Judi Atkinson to discuss the needs of young people in the town and how to best support them. The event was held in the Meeting Place hall, and was attended by ASMPF board members. Professor Atkinson, a Jiman / Bundjalung woman, is an Australian leader in trauma-informed responses for Aboriginal women and children.
The Foundation also supported this local group of Arrernte people to hold public educational events on Australia Day and Harmony Day.
Our bus keeps people connected
We continue to support local Aboriginal Christians, as well as isolated Pacific Islander workers, to attend church and church events in the town. This contributes to their perosnal well-being, as well as to the important task of social integration and meeting across our community.
The bus has also been used by the community to support Aboriginal families for hospital visits, funerals and community events. An Anangu pastor from Pipalyatjara also uses the bus when in town for his work.
Emergency relief
While we priotritise working for longterm social transformation at the Alice Springs Meeting Place Foundation we are also able to provide relief and support for people in times of crisis. One recent example of this type of activity was the purchase of a bus ticket for a woman to leave an unsafe situation in Alice Springs and return to Port Augusta, where she would be safe from harm.
June 2023
As part of the reimaging Adelaide House project the Foundation is co/presenting community screenings, conversations and workshops around these themes with Arrernte people and other community members. In June we were thrilled to co-host with the NT Writer’s Festival a conversation between Arrernte and Kalkadoon filmmaker Rachel Perkins and Kim Mahood about her documentary series, The Australian Wars. In this series Rachel debunks the myth that Australia was settled peacefully, and tells the history of Aboriginal resistance and bravery during the invasion of their lands. Rachel also made a passionate plea for Alice Springs to come out strong in the upcoming referendum on the Voice.
April 2023
We are pleased to announce our new project: Reimagining Adelaide House Museum.
Three public events will introduce this project and initiate community engagement around issues of truth-telling and listening to the diverse stories that make up life in this town. We trust that this project will contribute to the healing and transformation that our town and this nation seeks. We also trust that renewed ways of meeting and listening might lead to the better future which so many long for.
The first of three events gets underway on April 27 with an introduction to the project and a film night on our StoryWall.
This project sets out to renew visitor experiences of an historic building, the heritage-listed Adelaide House, in the heart of Mparntwe Alice Springs. The town’s first hospital and later put to a range of other uses, it eventually became a museum dedicated to telling the story of its founder, the Reverend John Flynn, and his mission to provide a ‘mantle of safety’ to settlers of Inland Australia. As such, it attracted steady visitation and strong volunteer support in the 1980s and ‘90s, but both have been in decline over the last twenty years. Today, the building’s owner, the Alice Springs Uniting Church, its leadership and members, are seeking to reimagine the story the museum tells. This comes in response to the national reckoning underway in relations between First Nations and Other Australians, inspired by the Uluru Statement from the Heart and its call for truth-telling about our shared history.In 2018, the ASUC, together with non church members of the community, established the Alice Springs Meeting Place Foundation (ASMPF), a registered charity that seeks to meet need, lead change and build capacity within the wider Alice Springs community. The foundation believes that understanding the complexity, and telling the truth about our history, is crucial to this. Thus, in partnership with the ASMPF a working group was formed to scope out a new concept for the museum that would break down barriers and divisions. The renewed museum will provide a richer, more balanced and honest account of the John Flynn story as part of a broader approach to central Australian and church history, introducing new strands paying particular attention to the relationships between First Nations and Other Australians that have been part of that history’s unfolding. A multi-layered and multi-media approach to the story-telling will allow the renewal to be implemented as a staged process. This has already started with the relationship-building and research that have been part of this initial scoping, and is ongoing with further community engagement planned for the first half of 2023. The renewed museum will deepen its existing offerings and break new ground in local story-telling. It will be a place to inspire, encourage and support visitors to engage, think, question and explore its key themes for themselves. Its significantly enhanced historical and contemporary relevance will provide the foundation for it to become a ‘must-see’ destination for local and tourists alike.
October 2022
With the support of a grant from the Australian Government the Alice Springs Meeting Place Foundation was able to hold a joint youth programme with the Desert Song Festival. This was a wonderful opportunity to empower young people through music, building on their gifts and passion. We were able work collaboratively with Desert Song on a joint youth programme over several weeks of the festival. As a focal point to the activity we were able to bring Adrian Eagle, a well-known Indigenous songwriter and performer, who worked with young people at the Meeting Place. These young people were predominantly from Yipirinya school. Together they wrote and recorded and song. This song was performed at the festival. You can see the video HERE.
Meeting People
The meeting place drop in centre for 4 years provided a welcoming and fun space for some of the most marginalised young people in the country. In a town with significant over-crowding and housing pressures we provided a safe 'lounge room' for young people in need at a time when there were no other youth services. Here they were able to access resources, relax, enjoy food, games and the company of others in safety and with respect. We also joined our voices to many others in this town advocating strongly for other services for young people which are no available.
Our approach to meeting need is entirely focused on people, the needs of the community and the energies of those around us. So with other youths services now available and the fact that many of our volunteers have moved on today, the space is no longer a youth drop in centre but is used by the 'Grandmother’s Group' who are at the forefront of helping their own communities and bring their wisdom as elders to this space. We are proud to support their gathering and vital presence in the heart of town.
Changing Stories
Our core value is focussed on people meeting, sharing and encountering each other with respect and deep listening. This is why we are seeking to engage in Truth-telling strategies and are working to help host these encounters. In a moment where the Uluru Statement from the Heart is calling for people to listen to Indigenous stories and perspectives, we believe that creating safe spaces for dialogue and learning can help bring this hope to fruition.
Recent Events
OUR HOPE:A thriving, safe community unified through its diversity. A community where all are valued and empowered to contribute and where understanding our complexity and telling the truth of our history allows all to share success
OUR VISION:To provide a safe meeting place for disadvantaged people to connect with the wider community, receive beneficial support and celebrate our oneness as respect breeds hope.
OUR STRATEGY:The Alice Springs Meeting Place Foundation has three key pillars to its strategy:
1. Meet Need To meet the physical, emotional and transitional needs of disadvantaged people through supporting services, opportunities and programs directed towards their needs.
2. Lead Change To lead and liberate through listening and shared learning encounters where the ideas and thoughts that contribute to reduction of need and a unified community are promoted.
3. Build Capacity To encourage and facilitate sharing and exchange between those disadvantaged members of the local community and the wider community thereby building capacity.
1. Meet Need To meet the physical, emotional and transitional needs of disadvantaged people through supporting services, opportunities and programs directed towards their needs.
2. Lead Change To lead and liberate through listening and shared learning encounters where the ideas and thoughts that contribute to reduction of need and a unified community are promoted.
3. Build Capacity To encourage and facilitate sharing and exchange between those disadvantaged members of the local community and the wider community thereby building capacity.
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