Our Ngukurr Wanta students recently took part in a girls and womens, Make Your Mark camp with AFLNT. The camp, a reward for our girls improving their attendance and behaviours at school, and a part of the Make Your Mark Program gave our girls the opportunity to practice and develop leadership skills, AFL skills, learnt about umpiring, health and wellbeing and got to go on some awesome excursions around Darwin. Thank you for AFLNT for hosting, BMD group for supporting the Make Your Mark program, and Ngukurr School for supporting us to facilitate this important and empowering experience for these amazing young women.
Day one, Monday, was a long travel day. We are very grateful for all the hard work that has been put into fixing Top End Roads after the huge wet season we had. We arrived at TIO for a delicious dinner, and were excited for our stay at the Michael Long Centre.
Tuesday, involved a healthy breakfast, and a welcome and introduction to the program and the staff that would be supporting our girls throughout the week. This was the start of the girls thinking about themselves, their goals, and developing leadership skills. We then had a tour of TIO stadium and did an awesome footy session. We were introduced to Balanced Choices who ran some fun engaging games that got the girls laughing and enjoying their time together. We were also treated to hearing some stories from some Aboriginal amazing women in the AFLNT space and leadership, it was empowering to hear the stories of these women and their families. We then headed to the waterfront to relax, and enjoy the beautiful dry season weather, before headed back for dinner and another great sleep.
Wednesday was jam packed with exciting sessions and activities. Starting the day with some mindful, empowering sessions that got the girls answering questions like how they were feeling, and what makes them happy, and what they love about their community was really special. We did some more footy sessions, and this time got to learn about umpiring! This was so fun and the girls learnt so much and got to put their umpiring skills to the test, some girls now saying they want to become umpires for real! We then hit the gym and got to train like the elite AFL players! We tried out some exercises like box jumps, and seeing how far the girls could jump, and wow could they jump far! We got on the bikes and the rowing machines, and then played some fun games like seeing who was better at kicking footy’s into a wheelie bin! We built up an appetite so the staff treated us to a visit to Kin Cafe in Darwin CBD. Kin Cafe is an Aboriginal owned cafe, and Ed introduced us to his family and told us about his story. The girls sat and listened so well, and afterward spoke about how kind and generous he was. If you are ever in Darwin, make sure you pay a visit to Ed at Kin Cafe in the Smith St Mall. With bellies full of delicious pasta, curries and stews, we headed to Aboriginal Bush Traders to check out what amazing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art was on display, unfortunately we just missed the Ngukurr exhibition by a week, but we did get to see some of the works of the Ngukurr Artists still in the gallery. The girls enjoyed watching a video about the gallery, and it’s always great for our students to see where their art could end up and be proud of seeing their friends and families works. After exploring, and a bit of a rest, we then headed to TIO to watch the Women’s Academy Training, what talented players we got to see! Then we had our own kick on the oval, got hungry for dinner, watched a movie and went to bed!
Our last full day on the program, was another jam packed one, and a bit bittersweet. The girls who were both excited to get home, but at the same time not wanting to leave, did their morning journaling routines and shared how they were feeling. Today was all about being proud of ourselves, and really focusing on our goals. The girls made posters of the goals they had, some included getting a job in community, studying after they finish school, playing for Collingwood AFLW! The girls presented their goals to a big group of people and we were so proud of them. The girls were lucky enough to receive some brand new footy boots, a singlet from the AFLNT Academy and lots of pride. The girls got to experience an awesome session delivered by Menzies Health Lab, that really highlighted the importance of looking after ourselves, the girls were particularly shocked about seeing how much sugar goes into some drinks like coke and energy drinks, they then got to make their own tote bags which ended up with some important health messages on them! We were treated to another session by Balanced Choices, with lots of fun games, this time getting to giggle at staff members doing the activities instead of them!
It’s not a trip to Darwin without a visit to Casuarina, so the girls got their shopping fix and then got to head to one of the most exciting activities, a Make Up Lesson.We got to visit Bleum studio, which is an incredible make up studio in Darwin ran by Jamie, who was so welcoming for our girls, make them feel so beautiful inside and out. Feeling fabulous with our makeup done we hit Darwin Waterfront for our final dinner to celebrate what an amazing week our incredible young women had been a part of.
Thank you so much to AFLNT for making this trip possible, what an incredible program that we are so grateful and proud to be a part of.
Thank you to Ngukurr School for covering costs for us to attend the residential camp and always supporting Wanta to take our students to meaningful experiences such as this one.
Written by Indi Drendel, Director Ngukurr Wanta Program.
Thank you to AFLNT, Kin Cafe and Bleum Studio for some of the photos used in this blog.
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