About Us

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The Reimagining Mulan Project (RIM) commenced in 2024 with a bold vision to reinvent the small, remote, and severely impoverished First Nations community of Mulan as a thriving, flourishing centre where everyone can enjoy a comfortable standard of living and wellbeing. 

RIM has five SMART objectives:

· To reduce economic disadvantage and poverty so people can live with dignity.

· To increase paid employment so people have liveable incomes.

· To implement best-practice in housing maintenance to ensure a safe and healthy living environment.

· To equip young people for employment so they have a future.

· To embed place-based community ownership of the process and reform service delivery and governance systems to build community capacity. 

Essentially RIM is about two things: creating jobs and alleviating poverty. 

Why Mulan?

A range of community characteristics make Mulan a suitable project location.

· The people at Mulan have always lived on their ancestral lands and are committed to staying where they are.

· The community is geographically isolated, which contributes to its stability. 

· Mulan is a small socially cohesive community comprising a few extended family groups, unlike larger fractious communities beset by conflicts between disparate cultural and extended family groups.

· Residents are the poorest of the poor. 

· The community has talented people able to drive this project and grow with it.

The community has existing assets, resources and future economic opportunities:

· Ownership of Lake Gregory Station which is sub-leased to the Yougawalla Pastoral Coy.

· A community store managed by Outback Stores Pty Ltd.

· A large industrial workshop

· Major roadworks sealing of Tanami Highway linking Halls Creek with Alice Springs provide employment opportunities.

· Paruku Indigenous Protected Area (IPA) employs Rangers engaged with biodiversity conservation, fire management, feral animal control and exotic weed management.

· Potential natural resource management projects associated with the Paruku wetlands.

· Potential of cultural tourism and birdwatching at Paruku (Lake Gregory).

· Proximity to the iconic Canning Stock Route popular with outback four-wheel drive enthusiasts.

· Warruyanta Art Centre with local artists selling works through Warlayirti Artists at Balgo.

· Potential of rare earth and other critical mineral development projects to provide jobs and training.

· Future mine-site and rangeland rehabilitation activities.

· Chronic disease prevention work conducted by Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services Council (KAMSC).

· Commercial potential of carbon farming, native seed collection, bushtucker, niche salt harvesting, and spinifex for medical and industrial use. 

· Abundant sunshine to support community transition to solar power.

Principles

RIM’s ways of working are guided by the following foundational principles:

· community-led and owned 

· place-based approach

· strategic intent

· results focussed

· development agenda designed from the ground up addressing the expressed needs, aspirations, and agency of local people

· focus on the underlying causes driving disadvantage rather than symptoms

· built-in flexibility to chase opportunities whenever and wherever they emerge

· ‘eyes on the prize’, namely the long-term goal of greater community independence and autonomy.

RIM Team

The Reimagining Mulan project team is resourced by a pro-bono Project Management Team of highly skilled and experienced people. The team has expertise in community management and development, remote housing, policy and program design and evaluation, land management, employment and training, governance, and submission writing. 

The inaugural team members are Shirley Brown, Dr Peter McEntee, Dr John Scougall, Alan Stewart, Geoff Barker, and Margaret Barker.  They all have a long association with Mulan. The team is keen to attract more highly motivated people who can bring additional knowledge, skills, and understandings. By way of example this might include those with expertise in education, social security, office administration, and health.

The approach of the RIM team is deliberately low key, aiming to under-promise and over deliver. The team is realistic and grounded in accepting the challenges and lengthy timeframes inevitably involved in a life changing project such as this. The project is starting from a very low base, but advancing like ripples in a pond that progressively gain breadth and momentum. 

Progress to Date

The Reimagining Mulan project has already demonstrated that the lives of First Nations people can be sustainably changed for the better in remote Australia. It has been successful in developing and implementing practical pathways out of endemic socio-economic disadvantage. 

Achievements to date:

· Establishment of Reimagining Mulan Project team.

· Conduct of household survey to identify community aspirations using WILAH (‘What’s it like around here?) methodology.

· Identification of three clear community priorities: jobs, youth and housing.

· Recruitment of lawyer Ribgna Green as pro-bono Community Adviser. (Ribnga is also Chairperson of the Tjurabalan Native Title Land Aboriginal Corporation).

· Mobility scooter acquired for the aged and infirm jointly funded by the Foundation for Rural and Regional Renewal (FRRR) and Wunan Foundation.

· Youth engagement program funded by the National Indigenous Australian’s Agency (NIAA) and delivered in partnership with project managers RPM. 

· Talent Pool Program providing entry level employment and training in recreation delivered in partnership with Royal Life Saving Society of Western Australia (RLSSWA) and John Pujajangka-Piyirn Catholic School. 

· Job Creation funded by NIAA’s Remote Jobs and Economic Development (RJED) Program and actively supported by Job Pathways.

· Housing for Health (H4H) project commenced making tangible improvements to health and safety.

· Mulan website up and running.