Arwarbukarl Cultural Resource Association (ACRA) became an Incorporated body in March 2002, the organisation was formed by the need for a dedicated Cultural and Language organisation in the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie area, Awabakal Country.
It was formed by two Aboriginal men, Abie Wright and Daryn McKenny, both of whom were born and bred in Awabakal country. With descendancy links to other Aboriginal countries within NSW, namely Gamillaray and Aaniwan, being born in Awabakal country strengthened our desire to do what ever we can to assist in the preservation and dissemination of Awabakal culture, language and history, and as a whole to do whatever we can through language and culture to strengthen not only our Aboriginal identity but others as well.
Whilst still in our infancy we have accomplished many things to assist in getting us to where we are today, some examples of these are:
Bringing awareness to hundreds of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children and adults about our culture and heritage.
Touring outback NSW and participating in NAIDOC days with schools in the form of dance, song and other activities.
Assembling the highly regarded Awabakal Dancers who have performed at many special occasions.
Learned from Uncle Roy Barker of Lightning Ridge the rare skills needed to continue the practise of Aboriginal artefact making, currently examples of our work are on display with the Newcastle Regional Museum in the permanent exhibition titled "Us Mob".
Manage the reclamation and revitilisation of the local Awabakal Language.
Develop ground breaking computer language tools to aid Aboriginal Language workers.
A lot of people will now know Abie Wright as a member of the highly acclaimed Aboriginal Hip Hop Group known as Street Warriors, a group who now use modern Hip Hop/Rap music to get there messages across to the youth of today. Abie now works permenantly with Street Warriors but still stays involved with our current work.
Today, ACRA's main focus is our work with our traditional languages for which we are funded by the Federal Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) under the Maintenance for Indigenous Languages Research program. We involve ourself in two main activities of language they are:
1. Awabakal Language Reclamation and Revitilisation 2. Development and training of Computer tools to aid Aboriginal Language work.
Our goal is to become Australia's leading Aboriginal Organisation developing empowering our people through technology to be successful in preserving and disseminating Australia's original languages.
2007 was an exciting year for ACRA, in April we held the first ever Pullima National Indigenous Language, Communication and Technology Forum in Newcastle, this was a great success with over 80 people attending for the 3 day forum. We travelled throughout Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales delivering Language Technology training to too many people to name. Our partnership with International IT company Dimension Data was recognised globally at Microsoft's Global Partner Awards. In November we came runner up in Microsoft Australia's Innovative Technology Training Awards. Lastly, we moved to our own premises for the first time in Cardiff in November 2007.
In 2008 we released a major revision of Miromaa and we will now support Aboriginal people with obtaining Miromaa at no cost. We will shortly launch the first ever National website for Aboriginal Languages in Australia, aptly named, Our Languages. It will be available at www.ourlanguages.com.au. During May we attended the 15th Stabilising Indigenous Languages conference held in Arizona, US. We also have published our work on the Awabakal language including Grammars, Learning Guides and Dictionaries. 2009 is going to be even more exciting.
You will be able to read much more about all of our activities by browsing this website. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any matters at all.
Affiliations
We would also like to acknowledge the support that we have received from the following affiliated organisations:
