First Nations changemakers

We helped the EON Aboriginal Foundation transition to become an Aboriginal Corporation registered under the Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Act 2006.  EON delivers a nutrition-focused, healthy lifestyle and disease prevention program - the EON Thriving Communities Program – in some of the most remote and disadvantaged regions of Australia.  In long-term partnerships with communities, EON builds edible gardens in Aboriginal schools and communities for a secure supply of fresh fruit and vegetables, and provides gardening and nutrition education.

We provided pro bono legal help to Hold Access, a First Nations-led not-for-profit company that has developed, in partnership with ConnectID, a digital wallet called WUNA.  WUNA is designed to empower First Nations people and others who are digitally excluded, to overcome digital accessibility barriers through improved identity verification.  It is planned that using WUNA will give First Nations people better control over their personal information, making it easier to store and hold their documents online and access essential services such as healthcare, government services, employment, education, and banking.  For further information, see here.

We continued to provide pro bono legal help and Clayton Utz Foundation strategic grant funds to Towards Truth, in support of First Nations-led truth-telling in Australia. Led by the Indigenous Law Centre and the Justice and Equity Centre, Towards Truth shows how laws and policies in New South Wales have impacted First Nations people since 1788.  Towards Truth catalogues laws and policies across four themes:  Kinship, Country, Law and Culture, and People. So far, our lawyers have helped map laws and policies on the following subjects:  languages, land dispossession, forced removals, adoptions, water rights, policing, colonial diseases, child welfare and participation in democracy.

Mob 4 Mob is the peak representative body for First Nations people with disability in Queensland.  Over the past two years, we helped Mob 4 Mob incorporate as a company limited by guarantee and successfully register as a charity with deductible gift recipient status.  This enabled Mob 4 Mob to better attract funding, and this year we also assisted Mob 4 Mob with various employment and corporate legal queries.  Mob 4 Mob told us:  "Thank you…your work has led to such a success for this group with 5 years secured funding".