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Griffin, Denese --- "National Network of Indigenous Women's Legal Services" [2006] IndigLawB 3; (2006) 6(16) Indigenous Law Bulletin 6


National Network of Indigenous Women’s Legal Services

By Denese Griffin on behalf of the NNIWLS

The National Network of Indigenous Women’s Legal Services Inc (‘NNIWLS’) is a national peak body for Indigenous women’s legal services and programs. It is a network promoting social justice by and for Indigenous women. NNIWLS promotes quality service delivery and access to law and justice for Indigenous women, children and families through advocacy, lobbying and education. Our vision is to have a just society that respects, upholds and protects the rights of Indigenous women, children and families.

Through the principles of empowerment, education and engagement, NNIWLS aims to resource its members to promote social and legal justice for Indigenous women, while respecting cultural diversity.

NNIWLS is a national, non-profit service association incorporated in 2002 under the Associations Incorporation Act 1991 (ACT). It has a committee of management, called the Strengthening Committee, which consists of five full members who have voting rights and two co-opted associate members of NNIWLS. The nominated representatives of the full-member organizations are eligible to be elected to the Strengthening Committee. NNIWLS’ Coordinator is an ex-officio member of the committee. In July 2004 an office of NNIWLS was established in the Perth central business district. The office currently employs a Coordinator, Communications Officer, Research Officer and bookkeeper.

The NNIWLS membership comprises of the following Indigenous women’s legal services:

Associate membership is available to individual Indigenous women who have a commitment to Indigenous women’s social justice.

Two strategic objective priorities for NNIWLS, as determined by members, are:

1. Partnerships;
2. Law and social justice reform;

with the aim of addressing the legal disadvantage for Indigenous women.

A project of the NNIWLS, ‘Our Strong Women’ has just successfully completed its second stage with the delivery of the ‘Our Strong Women – Speaking Up, Speaking Out’ Project (see below).

Key achievements for the network to date have been:

Since its inception, NNIWLS has received support from the Reichstein Foundation, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services, Commonwealth Office for Women, the National Women’s Justice Coalition, NACLC and lobbying and other support for individual Indigenous and non-Indigenous women throughout Australia.

Project Case Study One: Our Strong Women

Stage One: Indigenous Women, Law and Leadership Workshop

One of the objectives of the NNIWLS is to ‘provide training for members and others to empower Indigenous women and promote quality legal services for Indigenous women.’

Throughout 2002-2003 the NNIWLS delivered its first training project: ‘Our Strong Women – Indigenous Women, Law and Leadership’. This was a national training project, funded by the Commonwealth Office of the Status of Women (now known as the Office for Women). The training was facilitated and delivered by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (‘PIAC’) and NNIWLS. Two hundred Indigenous women in eleven locations across metropolitan, rural and remote Australia participated in the training.

The aim was to equip Indigenous women with the knowledge and skills to be effective advocates for their communities. The training included the course in ‘Work the System: An Introduction to Advocacy’, a PIAC nationally accredited course.

This project was a two-day training course tailored for Indigenous women associated with legal services which provide a service to Indigenous women as well as Indigenous women working in communities, community organisations and government departments.

In an evaluation of the training, the majority of course participants said that they had acquired relevant and practical knowledge and skills which increased their ability to contribute to policy and service responses as they relate to and impact on Indigenous women.

Stage Two: Strong Women Link-Up Project

This national project funded by the Office for Women provided information technology (‘IT’) training for Indigenous women during October and November 2004.

The aim of the project was:

1. To strengthen and enhance leadership skills of Indigenous women;
2. To promote public policy input by Indigenous women;
3. To enhance family violence prevention via cross-program and inter-community communication;
4. To support and facilitate the work of Indigenous women in non-profit community legal services by:
a. Identifying IT skills, resources and training needs for not less than 40 workers;
b. Implementing IT mentoring arrangements for not less than 40 individual workers to address identified needs;
c. Reporting on the experience of the project outstanding needs and ways forward relevant to NNIWLS, services in the network, and external bodies including Office for Women, the Federal and state Attorneys-General and the National Association of Community Legal Centres (‘NACLC’).

The project utilised mentoring and work-based activities to address participants’ identified training needs. The following was achieved:

The project was steered by a working group of the NNIWLS. Technical support for the project was provided by NACLC, and women, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, provided the mentoring for the participants.

Stage Three: Our Strong Women – The Next Step

A new national training project – ‘Our Strong Women – The Next Step’ – commenced in September 2004 and was completed in August 2005. This was funded by the Commonwealth Office for Women.

A training kit, ‘Our Strong Women – Speaking Up, Speaking Out’ has been developed for Indigenous women, by Indigenous women through NNIWLS and PIAC. The kit is to be used by Indigenous women to develop skills to promote the status of our women at a community, regional, state and national level. This project is the second stage of the ‘Our Strong Women – Indigenous Women, Law and Leadership’ project.

The national two-day training project was launched in Moree, New South Wales (‘NSW’) on 11 and 12 May 2005 and then piloted in five locations across Australia. Workshops were held in Townsville, Queensland; Moree, NSW; Darwin, Northern Territory; Broome, Western Australia and Port Augusta, South Australia.

The project objectives were to:

The ‘Our Strong Women – The Next Step’ project has been successfully delivered. Over 50 Indigenous women attended the workshops. The employment of the Administration support worker enhanced the project immeasurably and the working group was very involved in the project to provide advice, direction and delivery with support from the Strengthening Committee.

The next stage of the ‘Our Strong Women’ project will be to source funding to provide an opportunity for Indigenous women to undertake the workplace and assessment training necessary to allow them to deliver the training themselves in their communities and towns.

Project Case Study Two: Indigenous Women and Discrimination

NNIWLS and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (‘the Commission’) have worked in partnership on a national project to find out from Indigenous women the issues and discrimination they have faced whilst pregnant in the workplace and developing education materials around their responses.

The Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department requested the Commission develop, print and distribute culturally specific education materials in relation to pregnancy, potential pregnancy and breastfeeding discrimination in the workplace for Indigenous women. The project was undertaken on behalf of the Government with funding provided to the Commission from the Office for Women, the Office of Indigenous Policy Coordination and the Attorney-General’s Department. The resultant materials were based on consultations with Indigenous women in three locations nationally.

The aim of the project was to give effect to recommendations of the Commission’s ‘Pregnant and Productive: It’s a Right now a Privilege to Work while Pregnant’ Report of 1999 in relation to ‘the creation of culturally specific education material on pregnancy and potential pregnancy discrimination in the workplace for Indigenous women, and formulate an effective distribution program for the material produced’.[1]

The first consultation workshop was held in Perth on 27 July 2005 in facilities provided by Debarl Yerrigan Health Service. The first consultation saw the development of a focus group to provide direction on how the project will be delivered and what areas would need to be addressed. It was very enlightening, and ladies attended from community-based organisations, government policy development, young women currently in the workforce with children and also the legal profession.

The focus was to look at the different training and teaching tools that would make Indigenous women aware of what is available to them in regard to their rights. The issues would be addressed in accordance with the need and the areas identified through consultation.

Two further workshops were held in Kununurra, Western Australia and Port Augusta, South Australia. Jo Tilly, Senior Policy Officer of the Sex Discrimination Unit within the Commission, worked in consultation with Denese Griffin, Coordinator of NNIWLS. The resultant materials – ‘Discrimination and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women: Get the Facts, Know Your Rights’ – are currently being printed by the Commission for distribution to Indigenous women throughout Australia. Topics covered in the materials include:

Thank you to all the Indigenous women who participated in the Consultations.

Denese Griffin is a Nyikina woman, born in Derby, from the Kimberley, Western Australia. She is the Coordinator of NNIWLS.


[1] Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Report of the National Inquiry into Pregnancy and Work – Pregnant and Productive: It’s a Right not a Privilege to Work while Pregnant, HREOC Assessment of Government Responses to Recommendations (20002) Recommendation 27, <http://www.hreoc.gov.au/sex_discrimination/pregnancy/recommendations.html> at 8 February 2006.


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