The Mapuru Food Cooperative program provides nutritious food for a remote Eastern Arnhemland community. The Cooperative has been operating since 2002, when a local woman provided funds to establish a food co-op (small shop) in the school so children could learn about real money, using English and ICT for ordering and bookkeeping.

Three years later this food co-op was awarded the National Heart Foundation award for a Small Community Initiative. giving the local population control of the food supply. The Cooperative enables the school’s teacher and students to develop a curriculum based on planning and running a cooperative to develop literacy, numeracy, health and enterprise understandings and skills. The Cooperative enables Mapuru residents to live on their ancestral estates where more than half the food consumed is collected from the surrounding land.

Also the women of Mapuru have been successfully managing and operating the ecotourism business Arnhemweavers for 6 years, because they are desperate for their children to have a future living on their ancestral lands (see: www.arnhemweavers.com.au)

There has never been alcohol at Mapuru, and the women say there is no domestic violence and no child abuse.

Read more: http://www.creativespirits.info/aboriginalculture/education/fight-for-school-in-remote-communities.html#ixzz0hxFl9glc or for more information email: john.greatorex at cdu.edu.au