TDC Update
Our Mission at TDC is to develop all commercial opportunities on behalf of the clan members throughout the Region to advance our key aims of providing local jobs for local people and, in the long term, ensuring every child has a chance of a full life.
CEO Chat With Scott McIntyre
This week has been a challenging week, as the reality of COVID comes closing in.
We have been working closely with Murin and NTG to facilitate logistical support for people who have been stranded in Darwin, due to the risk of COVID being carried into community.
This week was largely taken up by coordinating accommodation, transport and COVID testing, as community members become desperate to go home to country and family.
Unfortunately, we had a number of positive cases identified at the airport, and the effort to identify and manage positive cases before COVID hits community, while supporting positive people to the Centre for National Resilience has been tough.
Thank you to John, Anne, Marvie, Hannah, Billy and all involved, who helped manage this logistical nightmare. Thank you also to Gaby, Rachel , Tom & Lea who have been working on COVID preparedness in community.
The gap between not having COVID and having COVID in community appears to be closing rapidly.
This past two weeks have shown us that the response efforts are clunky and the responsibilities are unclear, and the management appears to be falling on organizations like TDC and Murin.
We are continuing to work with NTG and Murin to get a more coordinated response effort in place. NTG has warned that the peak of COVID is likely to hit in February, so we will continue to do the best we can to manage the situation.
Welcome New Ranger Manager
TDC welcomes Chris Wade to the position of Ranger Manager, taking some of the load of Pete Sheldon who has almost single handedly been holding the fort in the ranger space, with the high turnover of staff since COVID started.
Chris has a diverse background in infrastructure and conservation management. In recent years he has worked in Africa in conservation and then in the Kimberley’s’ in WA as Maintenance Manager at Berkeley River Lodge.
Chris’s passion is conservation, and he loves the challenge of training and working with indigenous people, having developed a maintenance team which included rangers for Rhino Fund Uganda.
Chris skills include solar fence maintenance, land management, fire mitigation and response, training and animal management.
Augustine Joins Village Team
The TDC Village Welcomes Augustine Tunmuck to the team
Augustine has begun working with the Village team after participating in a range of activities with Tom and the Healthy Homes crew for some time.
He has brought with him lots of maintenance skills to help around the Village and has been out in the community most days driving the Orange Sky truck, so that community members have access to washing facilities. Well done, Augustine!
Palumpa School Holiday Challenge
Jema, Rhys and Jordan have been doing their best to keep the kids of Palumpa engaged in activities under the strain of crime and antisocial behavior.
The Centre was forced to close this week due to unrest in community.
Thanks to Jema and Rhys for soldiering on under such difficult circumstances.
Da Ngimalmin Taking Shape
The refurbishment of the old church, to transform it into the Da Ngimalmin Child and Family Centre is taking shape, with the Housing & Construction team fitting the laser cut sheets around the outside, and the main entrance doors all displaying the symbolic roots of everything image.
The re-roofing of the dwelling is 75% done, the weather impeding the project, but with a few days of clear skies the team are back on top getting it finished. The local boys are enjoying working on this project and are taking a lot of pride with their work, which is awesome to see.
This project is the result of many years of hard work by Tobias Ngambe and has been funded after a landmark Hu-man Rights and Equal Opportunity decision acknowledging that Wadeye had been discriminated against in its government allocating of funding into education.
When presenting to the Human Rights Commission in 2007, Tobias stated when referring to the children of Wadeye: “My vision for these kids is to be like any kids in Australia when they grow up. I want these kids to become pilots, become doctors, become lawyers, become AFL footballers. It will only be a dream if people don’t do something about it today – today, do it today, not tomorrow.”
The Centre is expected to be completed and ready for opening by the end of February. Thank you to Lea Brady and Brad Fitton and team for your work to support Tobias in bringing this vision to life.
CDP #A# Team
Lynne Jackson and HR have been working incredibly hard to get the CDP “A“ team recruited and on board with all case worker positions now filled and housed!)
Lynne is very excited to announce that our first Literacy, Numeracy and Digital course for 2022 will commence in Wadeye on the 7th February.
This is a 10-week course, aimed at giving people better basic skills to enable employment.
There are 25 spaces in the first course. If you have any staff, you feel would benefit from this course and enable them to upskill, please contact Lynne.
We are also calling for expressions of interest in a Certificate II in Security Operations course.
This course is run over a total of 17 days (inclusive of 2 days for Provide First Aid).
This course is aimed to develop skills for people who are formally or informally involved in managing people in a security situation.
Power Services at the Village
Power is now available to purchase at TDC Village! Ask our friendly staff if you would like to purchase power for your lot number.
Congratulations to Abbey Dorrington and the team for adding provision of power to the suite of services available at the village.
A friendly reminder to all visitors to the Village to help keep community safe by wearing your mask, use the hand sanitizers provided and check in!
Recycling Car Batteries
Shaun, Neil and Chris have prepared a load of batteries to be sent off to be recycled in Darwin.
Rangers pay a refund of $3 for each car battery to any community member who bring them in to us on recycling day. Thank you to everybody involved in this, this is a great initiative to help manage waste around community.
Supply Nation Registration
TDC has joined Supply Nation to be formally recognized as an Indigenous owned organization. Supply Nation partners with government, corporate and not-for-profit organizations to develop procurement policies that modify, and redirect spend to include the traditionally underutilized Indigenous business sector.
Since 2009, Supply Nation has worked with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses along with procurement teams from government and corporate Australia to help shape today’s emerging and rapidly evolving Indigenous business sector.
The registration provides businesses with certainty that they are working with genuine indigenous businesses.
