Thamarrurr Youth Indigenous Corporation to make own hygiene products using traditional bush ingredients
An Indigenous corporation has turned cultural knowledge into economic opportunity by winning a grant to produce hygiene products that could revolutionise remote community supply chains. Read the details.
A remote Indigenous community has received about $10,000 to create hygiene products using culturally significant bush ingredients such as Kakadu plum, after identifying expensive supply shortages.
Wadeye-based organisation Thamarrurr Youth Indigenous Corporation was awarded $9,445 for its Tarangka wurnangat – “Clean and Strong” – project.
With the grant funding, the corporation plans to create its own hygiene products like soap bars and scrubs, using local bush ingredients such as Kakadu plum that are culturally significant.
The grant will “create economic opportunities and foster sharing of cultural knowledge” by delivering workshops in bush medicine to create hygiene products, ANZ said in a statement.
The hygiene project started as a women’s wellness program earlier this year, driven by the local women in the community.
It initially focused on nutrition and fitness, but the women identified a need to also incorporate a hygiene component.
“There’s limited supply of soaps and other products in the local shops, and these are extremely expensive – three or four times more – compared to our supermarkets in Darwin,” said Thamarrurr Youth Indigenous Corp program manager Eve Crawley.
“Of course that’s because transportation can be expensive, as Wadeye is so remote and relies so heavily on the barge during the wet season.”
She also acknowledged there were cultural factors that made it challenging to access and use these products, such as products being shared and potentially going missing.
Ms Crawley said the organisation was “extremely grateful” to be awarded the funding.
“The fact that we’ve gotten this opportunity and this grant to now explore such a life-changing thing, I think it has the potential to make a huge difference in the community,” she said.
“We can start supplying our own hygiene products in the community rather than outsourcing it via barge and planes and how they normally come to the community.”
She added the funding would keep the money made from the products inside the community, rather than distribute it to outsourced companies that typically supply hygiene products for the community.
She concluded the goal was to not only provide these products to the community, but also explore potential micro-enterprise opportunities to sell them.
Seeds of Renewal is a longstanding partnership between ANZ and FRRR, dedicated to supporting vibrant, sustainable rural communities through targeted grants.
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Originally published as Thamarrurr Youth Indigenous Corporation to make own hygiene products using traditional bush ingredients
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