The Ngaanyatjarra, Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara (NPY) region is in the Central Australian Desert. It’s characterised by red soil, dry grasses, and home to remote, remote communities.
It’s an area and a group of people we too-rarely talk about. But one woman, Andrea Mason, is determined to change this.
She is the coordinator of the NPY Women’s Council (NPYWC). It’s a council responsible for 350,000 square kilometres of desert and 26 Aboriginal communities. It’s located at the intersection of the Northern Territory, South Australia and West Australia borders.
Mason is a former Australian political candidate.
She was the first-ever Australian indigenous women to lead a political party in 2004.
Last year, she was named the ‘Indigenous leader and business woman of the year’.
And, now, for her efforts in giving a voice to more than 3000 women in the NPY Region, she has been recognised as a finalist in the 2017 Australian of the Year Awards. She’s been named Northern Territory’s Australian of the Year.
“If I could sum up the spirit of [the NPYWC], it would be this: ‘Though we are many, we also are one’ and that actually sums up the honouring of the Australian of the Year awards,” Mason told the ceremony at the Darwin Convention Centre last November.
The Binge interviewed Miranda Tapsell about the need for diversity on Australian television and her struggle to find work as an indigenous actress. Post continues below.
The NPYWC works to improve the quality of life in women in Aboriginal communities. To help families raise healthy, resilient children.