CA SE STUDY Yarning Online OnCountry Technology supporting cultural connections While the COVID restrictions were necessary to ensure the safety of our Elders and our communities, the increased isolation and loneliness impacted health and wellbeing. Elders were missing the chance to participate in their usual activities – and to gather with extended family and friends.” Dr Lorina Barker, University of New England Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, senior women from remote New South Wales have been coming together, online and in person, to connect under the Yarning Online OnCountry project. Over many months, the project has been providing a culturally safe place for Elders to share knowledge, stories and skills and minimise the impacts of social isolation during COVID-19. “I love coming here,” said Aunty Dot Martin, from the Taragara Aboriginal Corporation project’s base at the Maranguka Community Hub in Bourke, 800 kilometres north-west of Sydney, on the south bank of the Baaka (Darling River). “I love the company. We have a good group of people and while we’re working, we’re laughing and joking all the time,” she says. Aunty Dot, a Ngemba woman, and other Elders in the Bourke region have been working for years on projects with Dr Lorina Barker, a descendant of the Wangkumara and Murrawarri people, Adnyamathanha, Kooma and Kunja, and Barkandji. Dr Barker is an oral historian based at University of New England in Armidale and the Director of Taragara Research. The project was funded initially for just 10 weeks. With a growing list of funders and partners, it is now entering its third year and set to expand into the Brewarrina, Weilmoringle, Enngonia, Goodooga, Wilcannia and Broken Hill communities. Beyond its own significant value, this small community-led project offers broader lessons, acting as a model for community engagement for universities, government land PHOTO: Yarning Online OnCountry Christmas party, Bourke Bowling Club, Bourke, NSW 2020. (Eliza Kent) Front row L-R: Barbara Kelly, Gwen Barker, Heather Mieni, Dot Martin; back row L-R: Peta Barker, Nancy Kelly, Lacey Barker, Nolene Nean, Michael Brogan, Sandra Kelly, Lorina Barker 40 TTransforming Power: Voices for Generational Change agencies and other potential allies, and highlighting a growing area of disadvantage – the digital divide. Lorina said it was only when the funding was secured for Yarning Online OnCountry that it became apparent how many households could not afford computers or internet connections. In some more remote areas, no digital access was available. “For us to be able to access health care and social services like Centrelink, we have to be able to digitally connect to the world,” she says. “If you’re not connected then you’re left out and left behind. That’s the 21st century gap that we need to close.” At the heart of Yarning Online OnCountry are not just important social and digital connections, but critical cultural and environmental work that allows the women to preserve cultural knowledge and care for Country. Local Lands Services Western NSW got involved, stepping up with two tranches of funding to date and supporting efforts to reintroduce the spiny sedge into the local river system, and for people to reconnect with the natural fibre and traditional weaving techniques. This was a reciprocal arrangement for government agencies, helping them, amid the disruption of COVID-19, to meet some of their milestones for 2020 and 2021.