Through Her Eyes
Making Herstory: Tiwi Women in Sport
These stories reflect on how that came about and what it meant for the women involved and the community, becoming invaluable to the more broader and general herstory of women in the Northern Territory and beyond.
Starwin assisted the project leaders for the Patakijiyali Museum in putting together the history, photographs and momentos for the Tiwi Youth Girls teams that are currently featured in the museum at Wurrumiyanga. Currently documented in the museum is the first four years of the Tiwi Bombers Youth Girls program, we would like to add to this with the herstories of women who led the way generations ago.
A new story...
Tiwi football (and sport) is a part of Territory folklore and history and record books. But these stories focus largely on being written by men, for men. Our dream is to change that and capture stories of Tiwi women in sport - success stories that reflect on eras gone by, to inspire generations to come. Our goal is to create a collection of oral herstories reflecting on the role of sport in the lives of Tiwi women and the community, as told by Tiwi women. By gathering research and material to support the profiles of Tiwi women we can start a groundswell of new possibilities.
We aim to also sit with female elders and leaders, individually and in circles to capture their stories and the oral histories of Tiwi women in sport and the
success stories that have emerged from that. These stories will provide a unique insight into the role sport has played in keeping culture strong and pathways that have been created for women on and off the islands.
By taking time to look back to the past, we may inspire some ways of working to help us move forward with more opportunities on the islands for women's participation in sport and leadership positions.
Questions in mind...
- Who were the first women to play sport on the islands and what were their stories?
- Who had success in leaving the island to pursue sport?
- What do the record books currently show?
- How did sport give women an opportunity to play and participate and pursue careers?
- What did this do for Tiwi community and culture?
We know there stories of daughters, mothers and grandmothers all playing in a Tiwi Islands Football League female football competition in the 1990's and early 2000's. We understand Tiwi may have featured some of the first Aussie Rules games held in remote communities in the NT, if not Australia.
We hope to capture some of these stories whilst there are women with living memories of these games and what they meant and share them in new ways, online, as a virtual storybank, so it's easily accessible and a living herstory.
If you have a story, photos or videos to contribute, please contact us, e: shopfront@starwin.com.au
