DKA welcomes Atlantic Fellow Maggie Kavanagh

DKA is proud to wel­come Mag­gie Kavanagh to the Desert Knowl­edge Precinct. Mag­gie is an Atlantic Fel­low for Social Equi­ty whose work focus­es on grow­ing a gen­er­a­tion of col­lab­o­ra­tive lead­ers to help Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties prosper. 

Work­ing in part­ner­ship with Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple, Mag­gie aims to estab­lish a lead­er­ship and gov­er­nance knowl­edge cen­tre in Alice Springs. It will become a learn­ing hub bring­ing peo­ple togeth­er to devel­op and strength­en their knowl­edge, skills, prac­tice and con­fi­dence to gov­ern and man­age their own com­mu­ni­ties, organ­i­sa­tions, coun­cils, shires and oth­er agencies.

Mag­gie began her career as a school teacher in a remote Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ty in the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry where she learnt to speak Pit­jan­t­jat­jara. Since then she has lived and worked in many remote Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ties in Cen­tral and West­ern Aus­tralia and the East Kimberley. 

Her career includes 16 years as the CEO of the NPY Women’s Coun­cil in Cen­tral Aus­tralia and four years as the Coor­di­na­tor of the Wilu­na Region­al Part­ner­ship Agree­ment. She was the recip­i­ent of a Churchill Fel­low­ship in 2006 and was part of the fel­low­ship involved facil­i­tat­ing five Abo­rig­i­nal peo­ple from Cen­tral Aus­tralia to exam­ine First Nation sol­vent mis­use treat­ment cen­tres in Cana­da and Alaska.

As an inde­pen­dent con­sul­tant, Mag­gie has been engaged by numer­ous Abo­rig­i­nal com­mu­ni­ties and organ­i­sa­tions and gov­ern­ment depart­ments to work in the fields of com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment, gov­er­nance train­ing and capac­i­ty building.

DKA wel­comes Mag­gie to the Precinct and looks for­ward to sup­port­ing her inspir­ing work.