Case Study
An Aboriginal cultural education tool
Preserving
Nyiyaparli culture
Coongan Pty Ltd is a Nyiyaparli family owned and operated organisation that offers archeological surveys, cultural awareness training (CAT) and environmental services to companies working on Nyiyaparli country. Nyiyaparli land is situated within the East Pilbara region of Western Australia, on the edge of the Western Desert.
Since 2011, approximately 25,000 people working on Nyiyaparli country have undertaken the training and the CAT is now a mandatory practice for people working on these mine sites. Coongan trainers were delivering CAT using PowerPoint presentations and wanted to update their training materials by leveraging current digital assets (photographs, maps, videos, drone imagery).
Moving away from static training materials
CAT provides an opportunity for Nyiyaparli people to share their stories, beliefs and practices with those working on Nyiyaparli country, and for people working on site to feel comfortable asking questions to gain an understanding of the culture and land.
The training shared few physical assets such as grinding stones and artefacts with trainees, other cultural knowledge shared was in the spoken word sitting with elders.
Coongan’s Managing Director, Mr Bradley Hall, recognised the need to evolve the training beyond a PowerPoint presentation and advance to a visual representation of the traditional sites and other sacred areas that are still accessible today. The visual tool needed to provide trainees with:
An interactive way to display Indigenous knowledge in a short period of time.
Information that enables trainees to ask questions specific to Nyiyaparli land.
A source of truth for stories and practices that have been approved by community elders.
Sharing stories with the whole community
Coongan worked with Winyama who recommended a 3D tour across Nyiyaparli country. Winyama built the new tool to help Coongan deprecate the previously time-consuming PowerPoint training system. The 3D tour is an education tool that showcases Nyiyaparli cultural and heritage sites using location data specific to Nyiyaparli country. As more stories are collected, Coongan can add and update stories on their tour to keep the map relevant and up-to-date.
The tool shows native title boundaries and allows people working on site to have a contextual understanding of where their mining activities are taking place. The map shows 20 sites that the CAT trainers and community can use to show traditional names and photos, or to learn some of the language to help form perspectives and understanding around particular places.
The Nyiyaparli community learns about their history from sharing stories between generations and as a result, Coongan has made map accessible to the Nyiyaparli community and schools as well. 3D tour’s simple functionality allows the community to log in and interact with the map, it caters to those with basic through to advanced computer literacy skills.
“Working with Winyama has been really beneficial to us because Andrew understands the space we are working in. There were things we didn’t have to explain to Andrew working on this project because he understood how the mob works, the different technologies and knew how to tell the story in a way that was culturally appropriate.”
— Bradley Hall, Managing Director, Coongan Pty Ltd
The 3D tour map has enabled Coongan to provide the community and trainers with an educational tool that showcases the cultural beliefs, practices and history of Nyiyaparli people, as well as the different mining and community activities happening on the land.
“Having this interactive map gives our cultural awareness trainers guidelines on what they can share and tailors the training to stay centred around specific Nyiyaparli country, rather than having to go into broad conversations about Aboriginal history and national hot topics.”
— Bradley Hall, Managing Director of Coongan
“With all the different projects happening on Nyiyaparli country, there’s so much information that can now flow back into this map and as a result, this map will help to continue to bring life to some of these projects, for the community itself and for people Workington Nyiyaparli country.”
— Chantal Hall, CEO of Coongan
“The community holds us accountable for accurately sharing the stories of Nyiyaparli. We were able to work together with Winyama to maintain the integrity of the project without the need to explain what is, and what is not culturally appropriate to speak about and share with others.”
— Bradley Hall, Managing Director of Coongan
Do you have a mapping project Winyama can help with?
Winyama has unique skill sets in environmental, heritage and land mapping.
We would be happy to hear from you to discuss your next project.