Yolngu teacher, healer Yalmay Yunupingu named as Senior Australian of the Year 2024

The respected teacher, linguist and community leader said her work at the Yirrkala school was her ‘most treasured accomplishment in life beside my family and community’.

Senior Australian of the Year Yalmay Yunupingu accepts the award alongside musician Witiyana Marika in Canberra on Thursday night. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Yolngu teacher, linguist and community leader Yalmay Yunupingu has been named the Senior Australian of the Year for 2024.

Before retiring in March last year, Ms Yunupingu worked as a teacher at the Yirrkala Bilingual School for more than four decades where she championed education in both English and Yolngu Matha.

In 2005, she was recognised as a “teacher of excellence” by the NT education department and made an honorary fellow at Charles Darwin University.

In accepting the award in Canberra on Thursday night, Ms Yunupingu said her work at the Yirrkala school was her “most treasured accomplishment in life beside my family and community”.

“As a young woman I was curious to know where education would take me, I was inspired by teachers and my leaders but all those years I never expected that I was going to become a teacher linguist,” she said.

“I worked at Yirrkala bilingual school teaching Yolngu children for over 40 years, through this I became a teacher specialist in both worlds to benefit my people and community but also to support non-Indigenous people to understand the real meaning of education in both worlds.”

Ms Yunupingu said it had been “a long and interesting journey” with “lots of ups and downs” but “it was my passion for education that kept me going”.

Yalmay Yunupingu with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

“I might have retired from school but I haven’t stopped wanting to educate people to see the benefit in both worlds way of working, Yolngu and balanda education.”

Since retiring, Ms Yunupingu has been teaching younger generations about traditional healing and made an impassioned plea for more support for Aboriginal medicine.

“Our people are sick and dying, young and old, unfortunately western medicine is not working on its own, we need to marry both worlds of healing,” she said.

“We need to give priority to cultural ways of healing to bring balance for better outcomes in education and health — we can’t do this on our own, we need your help to work together.

“We need to understand and respect the power of Yolngu healing, we need equal rights, including funding services and resources so we can work side-by-side and support each other and together we can share new ideas to heal our nation.

“Let’s all stand up and work together.”