By Kate Bonsack
WHEN a group of Aboriginal women from a remote Northern Territory community arrive in Newport this Friday, the butterflies in their stomachs will be flying.
For most of the 14 women, it will be their first time out of Alice Springs, and indeed the first time out of their town Yuendumu.
Yuendumu is 300 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs with a population of 1000 and has been declared a dry community.
The women, along with their babies, will first calm their nerves at Newport Baptist Church before taking a one-week journey through childcare centres to broaden their knowledge.
All of the women have been learning childcare in a federally funded childcare centre at Yuendumu through their mentor and the centre’s manager Judith McKay.
Ms McKay was a member of the Newport Baptist Church, who went to Yuendumu two years ago to take over the childcare centre that she said hadn’t been running too well.
She will bring the women to Melbourne and expose them to childcare practices in Melbourne.
“They’re very nervous,” she said.
“They’re nervous about the flight and coming to a big city.
“They’ve never been on an aeroplane before.”
Ms McKay and Newport Baptist Church Pastor Peter Clark hope the local community will support the women.
“Some of them are scared,” Ms McKay said.
The women will tour childcare centres in Daylesford, Thornbury and Broadmeadows before completing an intensive day of training at Noah’s Ark Children’s Centre in Armadale.
In between, they will find support at the Newport church.
Pastor Clark said the tour would give the women incentive to know what to do when they go back to the childcare centre in Yuendumu.
“They’ll see techniques they may not have been exposed to in their community,” he said.
Ms McKay said the women were doing a great job in the childcare centre, but they needed to widen their knowledge.
“We’ve got a waiting list of 30 women wanting to work in the centre, so these women are playing a big role in the community,” she said.
“There’s about 150 kids in Yuendumu aged under five.”
