5 5.3 A human rights-based approach to native title reform Wiyi Yani U Thangani Project Given the importance of the Wiyi Yani U Thangani Project to this Native Title Report, I have laid out below a brief overview of the Project to give readers a basic notion of its aims, the work it entailed, and the findings and recommendations it made relating to the native title system. (a) Project overview Stage One of the Wiyi Yani U Thangani project involved national engagements with First Nations women and girls throughout 2018. The Wiyi Yani U Thangani Report43 released at the end of Stage One identified major systems-deficits across the board and made recommendations for broad structural reforms to meet the needs and rights of First Nations women and girls’.44 The Report goes far beyond siloed issues and delivers a striking message: that we will reach a meaningful point in our journey of political agreement-making in Australia when we seriously begin the shared work of transforming our systems, across all sectors and parts of life, from siloed, punitive, top-down, and short-term to holistic, healing-orientated, culturally and community-grounded and sustainable. Following publication of the Wiyi Yani U Thangani Report, Stage Two of the project focused on socialising its findings with communities, peak bodies, First Nations and non‑Indigenous organisations, as well as the Commonwealth and state and territory governments. To aid in conveying the key messages of the Wiyi Yani U Thangani Report, the Commission published several tools. This included an animation From Dreams, Let’s Make it a Reality.45 Also included was the Wiyi Yani U Thangani (Women’s Voices): Implementation Framework (2021),46 which provides guidance for translating the substantial findings of the Report into meaningful action to make systemic change. The Implementation Framework was designed as ‘a living document’ to be used and refined in preparation for dialogues at the national First Nations Women and Girls Summit in 2023 and to form the basis of a Change Agenda that was published in March 2024. The Wiyi Yani U Thangani First Nations Women’s Safety Policy Forum was held virtually on 12 September 2022, bringing over 150 participants together in a self-determining space, drawing together the diversity of issues, uniting voices and finding common ground for the path ahead. The ultimate intention of the Forum was to re-set the relationship with government, centring First Nations women in the design and development of the policies and systems that impact our lives. The First Nations Women’s Safety Policy Forum Outcomes Report (November 2022)47 is a contribution to setting out the pathway for transformational change, sitting alongside the long journey of advocacy of First Nations women, centuries past and present. The Outcomes Report of the Safety Policy Forum primarily deals with context-setting and the steps required for how to move forward in designing effective plans and policies to end violence. The First Nations Women and Girls Summit – the key engagement event of Stage Three of the project – was held in May 2023. The Summit was the first ever national gathering of its kind to focus entirely on the issues that matter to First Nations women from Countries across Australia. There were over 900 participants in attendance. Women called for a national gathering to make themselves visible, to celebrate and share their diverse strengths and all they have achieved, and to create a time and space to determine the way ahead and consider how to translate the substantial body of evidence in Wiyi Yani U Thangani into reality. Several significant documents came out of the 2023 Summit including the Summit Communiqué, and the Wiyi Yani U Thangani Youth Statement 2023. Australian Human Rights Commission 31