Warlinginchi Apa: Slowly And With Determination, One Step At A Time
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From the 4th to 6th of November 2022, Warumungu Elders from one family group known for their housing and climate justice advocacy hosted the Warlinginchi Apa Forum. Mr. Norman Frank Jupururrla and his wife Serena Morton Nabanunga, an Alyawarra woman; Ms. Patricia Frank Nururula; Ms. Linda Turner Nabanunga, Chair of Julalikari Council Aboriginal Corporation; and Ms. Dianne Stokes Nampin, recently acting Mayor of Tennant Creek; and their collective children.
• Built in 2021, this three-bedroom government house accommodates
13 residents. The same design can be found throughout the NT.
Photo by Wilya Janta, 2022
Invited guests included highly skilled and qualified builders, plumbers, electricians, engineers, solar experts, remote experts, architects, landscape architects and lawyers. These people travelled from New Zealand, Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle, Adelaide, Darwin and Alice Springs to discuss opportunities to right some housing wrongs and create a better future.
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• Photo of an uninsulated tin humpy in Tennant Creek. This house built in the 1970's has no running water or power yet accommodates
7 residents.
Courtesy of Andrew Quilty, 2023
The Forum was about real people, real problems and real solutions. There was consensus from The Forum that remote housing has failed the people of Tennant Creek, and there are significant opportunities to do it the Warumungu way - to disrupt the paradigm by engaging with communities to build beautiful, climate-appropriate, sustainable homes in ways much more cost-effective than the current NT housing industry status quo. The Forum was the first step to achieving this outcome.
The next step will be to build some Demonstration Homes and invite other Wumpurrarni, Yapa, Anungu and other First Nations people to see what is possible and how it can be done.
• The kitchen and interior spaces of newly built government houses are uninviting.
Photo by Wilya Janta 2022
• Photo of an interior of a newly built government house.
Courtesy of Andrew Quilty, 2023