The Communicate Study Partnership are hosting the third annual First Nations Health Communication Symposium + Workshops. Please see below details for the first of two workshops:

When: Wednesday the 18th of October.

Time: 9:30am - 12:30pm

Location: Menzies School of Health Research, John Matthews Building (RDH campus)

This three-hour workshop explores concepts and processes that support intercultural communication and facilitate the co-construction of shared understandings. The workshop will be co-presented by Yolŋu (First Nations Australian people from North-East Arnhem Land) and Balanda (non-Indigenous) researchers. Workshop participants will be supported to reflect on, discuss and strengthen their intercultural communication processes with respect for the diversity within and between communities. There will be opportunities for interactive group discussions about applying intercultural communication concepts to research and practice.

This workshop is based on collaborative research conducted in Galiwin’ku, North-East Arnhem Land. Facilitators will share their research findings about key processes which families and service providers recognised and enacted to achieve an intercultural connection - a “flow that comes when we’re talking”. We represent these processes with metaphors drawn from the water’s journey through Yolŋu lands to meet the sea. Workshop participants will explore multi-media resources and an educational process we co-created through participatory action research.

Rachel Dikul Baker is a Yolŋu research consultant, cultural competency trainer and accredited interpreter. Dikul is a Djambarrpuyŋu woman from Ŋurruyurrdjurr in North-East Arnhem Land. She has completed her Diploma of Indigenous Research and is currently studying a Bachelor of Arts (Anthropology). Dikul is a weaver who uses pandanus fibres with natural bush dyes.

Emily Armstrong is a non-Indigenous researcher whose family, descended from convicts and white settlers, has been in Australia for eight generations. Emily works in collaborative intercultural partnerships with Yolŋu researchers. The research shared in this article is part of her doctoral research. Emily is a speech pathologist with experience across a wide range of services in health, disability, education and higher education fields.