Works Team Leader Mack Murphy cutting the Yuelamu Aged Care facility grass earlier this month.Yuelamu has received nice rain over the month of November, resulting in fast growing thick green grass around the entire community of Yuelamu.

Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) Field Officers have been working tirelessly over the past month cutting the fresh green grass for the community residents to have access to the available facilities in Yuelamu, including contracted agencies.

Natalie Petrick – Community Safety Patrol, and Di Schrader – Atitjere Administration Officer, using the face mask disposal boxThe Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) office in Atitjere has a box especially for the disposal of face masks. Staff take the box straight out to the cardboard pit at the landfill for burning, with no risk of masks floating out from the landfill.

“The box is burned as well so there isn’t any risk of staff handling used masks. There are always heaps of cardboard boxes between us and the store!” said Warren Kenney, Manager, Council Services Delivery – East.

“Community members seem to be getting on board with the mask wearing and are happy that they can safely get rid of used masks,” he added.

It has been over two years since Yuelamu represented Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) at the Southern Cup Basketball Tournament in Alice Springs. The competition happened on the weekend of 30-31 October and involved playing games of 5X5 (five a side) as well as 3X3 (three a side using half the court).

Supported by Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) Youth Sport and Recreation (YSR), the Yuelamu B team won the 3X3 competition, and the main team came third in the full court game.

The players also received a training session on how to umpire and gained some valuable skills to use back home.

At the end of October 2021, the Commercial Services team from Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) converged in Alice Springs for in-house training.

In one of the sessions of the training the team reviewed the upcoming changes to employment services in regional and remote Australia; particularly, Government’s decision to change the Community Development Program (CDP) to a new remote jobs program in 2023. There was also a representative from the National Indigenous Australians Agency (NIAA) Central Australia office Engagement Team who attended a session to talk about the provider performance review process.

The Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) 2020-21 annual report has been sent to the Minister for Local Government, Chansey Paech MLA, and is now up on the CDRC website. The annual report shows the progress CDRC has made against the Strategic Plan throughout the financial year and the CDRC annual financial statements. It also includes achievements and stories of the CDRC communities.

You can read the annual report here: 2020-2021 Annual Report

The Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) Youth Sport and Recreation (YSR) team held a Yuelamu Halloween disco on Saturday 23 October as part of school engagement tool.

Entry to the event was based on school attendance and the kids created spooky masks which was part of the school curriculum. There was a best mask prize awarded however all kids received a small prize for participating.

“We played the dance and freeze game which was a high light, and limbo,” said Vaughn Hampton, Team Leader - Youth and Community Safety, Yuelamu.

Community cleaning was identified as a priority in the Community Development Program (CDP) community survey ran in July. CDP has created a program to mobilise communities to clean up their locations. The first cleaning exercise was held at Nturiya (Station) on 6 October and the program continued on 12, 13 and 14 October in Pmara Jutunta (6 Mile), Nturiya and Wilora respectively.

Photo: Mark Francis, Builder Trainer, Billy Anderson, Support Officer, Ryan Nelson, Support Officer, Clifford Martin, job seeker and Francis Madonko, Program Manager CDP Activities, finishing the clean-up.

Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) Community Development Program (CDP) Support Officer Ryan Nelson and Billy Anderson, a job seeker at Nturiya, have removed grass growing through the Nturiya basketball court surface, removed rubbish and used a brush cutter to cut grass around the edge of the court.

Billy Anderson also assisted Mark Francis, CDRC Builder Trainer, to reattach a basketball hoop, allowing the kids of Nturiya to play basketball safely and properly again.

Photo above: Removing the grass from the surface of the basketball court.

Central Desert Regional Council (CDRC) Community Development Program (CDP) surveyed clients to get input from job seekers and the community on what they thought of the quality of services provided by the CDP program and to gain insight on areas respondents wanted to see improvement in. 74 respondents were surveyed across the communities of Ti Tree, Willowra, Laramba, Yuelamu and Yuendumu at the CDP Careers Expo at the beginning of the financial year.

Community clean-ups was rated the number one activity by 24.8% of respondents, gardening was rated second (21.3%), arts and crafts third (19.65%), furniture making fourth (17.9%) and health and nutrition fifth (16.4%). The top two suggested areas of improvement were: increased training (55% of respondents) and activities (19%).