Mirima Dawang Woorlab-gerring Cultural Centre receives $1.1m grant to help revitalise Miriwoong language

A new learning space dedicated to preserving and revitalising the Miriwoong language is set to become a reality with Mirima Dawang Woorlab-gerring Language and Cultural Centre in Kununurra receiving a $1.1 million grant from Lotterywest. The grant funding will go towards building a new community learning space at the centre’s site with adjoined offices to help accommodate the centre’s expansion. Mirima Dawang Woorlab-gerring Language and Cultural Centre chief executive and senior linguist Knut J. “KJ” Olawsky said the new space would help the centre expand and make strides towards its goal of creating a new generation of Miriwoong speakers. “We’re so thrilled to get this grant, it’s a real game changer for us,” he said. “Our work has been growing over the years and we have simply run out of space. At the moment we have several teams that are engaged in language revitalisation work that have no office space.” The centre currently engages some 600 school-aged kids from early years up to Year 6 with the centre teaching 40 language classes per week. Mr Olawsky said the centre hopes to eventually be able to teach kids all the way through high school as well. “Our big plan really is to make it available to kids from when they start to talk to the end of high school but right now, we stop at year six because we don’t have the capacity in terms of the number of employees we have funding for,” he said. “Even if we had another team right now, we wouldn’t know where to put them. That’s why the space is so important for us. “At the moment, we need to do all that teaching at the schools and at early learning centres. There are only a few groups that actually come to us, so we would like to have the opportunity to run some sessions here and the new space will allow us to do that.” He said the centre hopes to have the building finished by the end of the year or early 2027. “Ideally, I’d like to see the first shovel in the ground at the end of the dry season this year. That would be sensational,” Mr Olawsky said. However, teaching the Miriwoong language to school kids was already starting to see some encouraging results in the community, according to Mr Olawsky. “We hope to create a new generation of speakers, and it is a big challenge, but we can see some real positive signs that progress is happening,” he said. “The feedback we’re getting from parents and from teachers is overwhelmingly positive, especially for Indigenous kids that tend to struggle in the general education context. “When they have their language class, some teachers have told us, they turn into different kids because they are more engaged and it feels more relevant to them. “We also have parents come to us and say, ‘I learned a new Miriwoong word today. I’m a Miriwoong person but my kid taught me,’ so we are getting to a point where the kids who are learning the language are teaching their parents. “Not many languages in the world have been successfully revived. We have a firm commitment to make this happen for Miriwoong and it can only happen if we keep growing.” Kimberley MLA Divina D’Anna congratulated the Mirima Dawang Woorlab-gerring Language and Cultural Centre team for their successful grant application. “Congratulations to the Mirima Dawang Woorlab-gerring Language and Cultural Centre in Kununurra on receiving a Lotterywest grant of just over $1.1m to support the creation of a community learning space,” she said. “This important investment will help ensure Miriwoong language, culture and knowledge are strengthened and passed on to future generations.”