Arnhem Human Enterprise Development (AHED)

Arnhem Human Enterprise Development is a project in responsive and sustainable development designed to bring hope, prosperity and new possibilities to desperately disempowered Indigenous communities in remote Australia.<p>

AHED fills a service gap in remote communities to:
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Deliver greater control for remote Aboriginal people over their own lives and the circumstances in which they live.<br>
Ensure sustainable social and economic growth in remote communities that is locally driven and locally controlled. <br>
Combat welfare dependency by assisting Aboriginal people to develop their own enterprises and, achieve financial independence, a sense of purpose, and fulfilment.
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Provide capacity building through, practical and appropriate functional literacy education for engagement with mainstream economic and social systems.
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Create jobs that are new, unique, sustained by local ownership and compatible with local demands, Indigenous cultural, and economic and law systems.
<br>
Identify and target the limitations to social and economic development.<p>

<b>The AHED facilitation service</b><p>
AHED Enterprise facilitators are embedded in the community to ensure their availability to the local people, to respond when asked (and only when asked) to assist the visions of local people. Clients engaging facilitators are guided in analysis of their endeavour and supported in their endeavour with the human and material resources necessary where limitations exist that are beyond the capacity of the clients. Facilitators also play an educational role, using cross-cultural educational methodologies and the local Indigenous language and cross-cultural concepts to fill knowledge gaps. Facilitators work in the local language to allow effective exchange of cultural knowledge. The focus is always on supporting the client, not the enterprise, ensuring that the client can maintain complete control of and are primary participants in their endeavour. <p>

The AHED pilot project begins in 2009 in Galiwin'ku North East Arnhem Land, where Elders have invited Tim and Kama Trudgen (the first two facilitators to be placed on the ground) to base the project. <p>

<b>Remote Indigenous communities</b><p>
Remote Indigenous people face many difficulties in their communities; widespread health problems, low levels of education, and poor employment rates. However, few existing services are able to provide for local community and economic development, or tackle the entrenched welfare dependency that underlies much Indigenous disadvantage. <p>

Most personnel are so busy providing basic services or implementing external government policy that no one is available for responding to local motivation. The Indigenous people of north east Arnhem Land, have many ideas, and visions for their future development. Visions to start their own businesses, desires to learn new skills, visions to live and trade from their lands, dreams of independence and to control their future. But when an Indigenous person wants to start a new enterprise they are limited by cultural barriers, and poor education about the mainstream social, legal and economic systems. Human enterprise facilitation provides them a service to overcome these limitations. The grass roots development that AHED enables will contribute to improved self worth, and self-mastery leading to long term reduction in welfare dependency and improvement in well-being.<p>

<b>Methodologies</b><p>
Clear strategies are needed to deal with the challenges that exist in remote Indigenous communities. This project brings together two complementary methodologies to effectively support local aspirants. <p>

The 'Enterprise Facilitation' model developed by Ernesto Sirolli defines facilitator roles, attitudes and engagement with clients to prevent the abuse of the facilitator services, discourage dependency behaviours and maximise clients success through careful analysis of client motivation, management and human resources.<p>

The cross-cultural capacity building methodologies of Aboriginal Resource Development Services (ARDS) and Why Warriors pty ltd, ensure facilitators are able to overcome the cross-cultural communication and educational difficulties when supporting remote Indigenous visionaries. The application of effective cross-cultural, cross-language skills enables the Enterprise Facilitation model to be effective for Indigenous communities.<p>

The entire process will be well documented to make AHED fully replicable for future expansion.<p>

<b>Supporters</b><p>
Why Warriors Pty Ltd : Aboriginal Resources and Development Services : Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation : The Sirolli Institute : RWM Consultancy : <p>

Contact<br>

AHED,<br> PO Box 146,<br> Nhulunbuy NT 0881 <br> www.whywarriors.com.au/ahed-project<br>