Chloe Jones, Marissa Kerr, Anita Larkin, Mya Falla, Berniece Joachim, Dan Wright and Dr Paul Briggs.
More than 70 local businesses and community leaders gathered at Kaiela Arts on May 8 for Breakfast with Purpose, a morning of conversation, connection and inspiration centred on First Nations economic inclusion in the Goulburn Murray region.
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The joint Kaiela Arts and Kaiela Institute and Yorta Yorta Nation Aboriginal Corporation event brought together ‘plan champions’ of the Goulburn Murray Regional Productivity and Prosperity Plan, alongside owners and entrepreneurs from local Aboriginal businesses.
Kaiela Arts Art Centre manager Anita Larkin initiated the event after leaving a plan champion workshop at Rumbalara Football and Netball Club last year, inspired by conversations in the room and determined to turn momentum into action.
“Today is Kaiela Arts’ response and an investment in the vision of the prosperity plan,” Ms Larkin said.
“It’s how we’ve chosen to contribute, and hopefully model how each of us, in our own way, can turn ideas, values and principles into something real.”
She spoke of how the plan challenged zero-sum thinking around economic growth, reframing First Nations culture and identity as regional assets rather than deficits.
“Every time Kaiela Arts sells an artwork, delivers a program, employs an Aboriginal person, we are not taking something from this region, we are adding to it,” Ms Larkin said.
Guests also heard from Kaiela Arts curator and gallery manager Chloe Jones (Yorta Yorta, Wemba Wemba) and marketing and engagement trainee Mya Falla (Dulguburra YidinjI), who shared insights into their own journeys from being young people participating in Kaiela Arts programs, to being artists, staff and now emerging as First Nations cultural leaders in the region.
Yorta Yorta Nation’s Economic Hub manager, Dan Wright, spoke about the Yirramboi Business Initiative, which supports First Nations people to develop their own enterprises.
The morning's keynote came from executive chair of the prosperity plan Dr Paul Briggs, who reflected on what the plan represented in the broader sweep of the region’s history and future.
Dr Paul Briggs delivered the keynote speech at the breakfast.
For Dr Briggs, it is part of an ongoing legacy, decades in the making, to build genuine belief that the Goulburn Murray region can be prosperous, productive and full of possibility.
He described a vision in which the region becomes a national example of what is achievable when a community pulls together, commits to real change, respects First Nations culture and ensures full economic access for First Nations peoples.
He gave recognition of the value Yorta Yorta people have always contributed to the region, and said that the plan was an opportunity to address injustices that have long diminished First Nations quality of life.
Briggs framed the plan as not only an economic strategy, but as a reframing of how First Nations people are valued in the Australian story.
The Breakfast with Purpose event was initiated by Kaiela Arts Art Centre manager Anita Larkin, who addressed the crowd at the morning event on May 8.
The event closed with a call to action for plan champions to consider how their own organisations can contribute to keeping the plan's momentum strong.
