by Mark Schulman
This reporter visited a MASHAV graduate in Australia. Mark Schulman, a journalist stationed in Canberra while his wife, Noa Furman, works as First Secretary at the Israel Embassy in Australia's capital, discovered that Lynette Liddle (International Institute, 2000) is implementing what she learned in Israel at the same time that she is doing pioneering work among the Aboriginal people of her nation.
Gundagai, Wagga Wagga, Collingullie, Narrandera. The names of the towns only got stranger and more difficult to pronounce as I drove deeper into the
heart of rural New South Wales towards Leeton, a small town of 7,000 some seven hours by car from Sydney, the state's capital.
Leeton is an agriculturally-based community within Australia's Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, a flat and featureless two thousand square kilometer region responsible for producing most of the country's rice, as well as 75% of New South Wale's wine grapes and citrus fruits. It's January, the middle of the summer in the southern hemisphere, and the harvest season is coming to an end. Wheat is being loaded into the silos and farmers are burning off their rice stubble in order to prepare for next season's crop.
It is against this backdrop where I met Lynette Liddle, one of the Israeli Foreign Ministry's Center for International Cooperation's (MASHAV) newest graduates and first Aboriginal woman to receive a training course scholarship.
Lynette, an education officer with the Murrumbidgee College of Agriculture, recently returned from Israel where she completed a course on Women's Empowerment for the Management of Peoples' Organizations at the Histadrut's International Institute in Kfar Saba.
The one-month MASHAV course was designed to enable participants to have a better appreciation of gender issues in the workplace and the community, as well as to advance women in leadership roles in their respective countries.
Being a leader and community role model is certainly not a new concept to Lynette, who was the first Aboriginal women to receive a Bachelors of Science in agriculture from the University of Adelaide in South Australia and a Masters in Science in environmental management and development from the Australian National University in Canberra. "Both these degrees were Australian firsts," Lynette told Shalom Magazine. "I was one of the early pioneers for future Aboriginal science graduates."
Lynette joins a distinguished list of accomplished Australian Aboriginals, which includes Olympic 400m gold-medallist Cathy Freeman and Senator Aden Ridgeway, the second indigenous Australian to be elected to the federal parliament. Senator Ridgeway visited Israel in 1999 as a member of the Australia-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group delegation.
Others have also visited Israel, including two Aboriginal doctors who have ecently received scholarships from the Australian Friends of the Hebrew University and the Israeli Embassy in Australia to pursue Master's degree in public health at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In addition, a delegation of Aboriginal leaders from the Northern Territory Central Land Council visited Israel in 1999 to explore possibilities of cooperation in the areas of agriculture, aquaculture and regional development.
Although Aboriginal people have been living in Australia for over 50,000 years, as confirmed by their world-famous rock paintings, today, they make up only 2% of the country's current 19 million population. According to the Australian Department for Aboriginal and Torres Straits Affairs, indigenous Australians are much less likely to complete high school than other Australians and are even more less likely to pursue post-school qualification. The statistics, however, are starting to improve a bit. In 1999 some 8,000 indigenous students were attending higher education courses, up from 3,300 in 1988. Females comprised 63% of indigenous higher education students.
Despite growing up on a remote cattle station, near Uluru (Ayer's Rock) in central Australia, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest town and school, getting an education was always top priority.
"My greatest influence was my great-grandmother," Lynette recalled. "Even though she didn't have any formal education, she was the one who told us kids to stay in school and keep studying."
That advice certainly paid off as Lynette and her four siblings moved to Alice Springs for high school, and then on to college where they each pursued separate professional careers. Her twin sister became the first Aboriginal policewoman in Australia and her brother was the first Aboriginal airline pilot for Qantas, Australia's national carrier. Another sister is a journalist and the fourth sister is a teacher.
For the past several years, Lynette has been working within the Australian agriculture sector, with a particular focus on Aboriginal issues. As an education officer for the Murrumbidgee College of Agriculture's Aboriginal training program, she works specifically on rural and economic development projects for Aboriginal landholders.
"Here at the College, for the time being, I'm an education officer and do research on Aboriginal issues relevant to New South Wales agriculture, including commenting on submissions, government policy, water reform, native vegetation, and how that affects Aboriginal people and what should be the considerations. I advise and assist them [Aboriginals] in preparing property plans, feasibility studies, land use options and managing rural resources," she added.
Working with the Aboriginal community has been a large part of Lynette's life and career. She has been committed to helping Aboriginals participate in the rural economy so that they can make decisions within their own communities.
Lynette addressed these issues during the course of her program in Israel. As each participant was required to prepare a project designed to benefit members of their organization or community, her project focused on enhancing cooperation between Aboriginal scientists and land managers.
"Herein, I believe, lies the opportunity to empower Aboriginal people in Australia to undertake cooperative activities and to adopt and understand principles that can facilitate more sustainable livelihoods from their complex and diverse agricultural system."
"The project I worked on in Israel was on cooperative enterprises for wildlife management for Australian Aboriginals. Basically, on Aboriginal farming cooperatives to supply and provide the products from wild animal harvesting and management. It included animals like kangaroos, crocodiles, goannas."
Although the course was supposed to be on women's empowerment, it went well beyond its title. "Most of the subjects were taught within the context of gender issues, but the real strength of the program I felt was on economic development," she said. "I learned more in this course than all the years I studied economics," she added.
She also had a chance to learn about Israel and its people, which is another MASHAV goal. Through the wide range of courses the Center offers, it has always been an important vehicle for encouraging cooperation in the fields of agriculture, technology, education and medicine between Israel and developing countries.
In Lynette's course there were participants from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, as well as from Papua New Guinea in the Pacific region, all visiting Israel for the first time.
"I really knew nothing about Israel or the Jewish people before coming," Lynette admitted. "It's not like you see them walking around the desert in central Australia."
Although coming from a world away, there were several similarities that reminded her of home, particularly the aridity of the land and lack of water, as well as the numerous eucalyptus forests found throughout the country. Thousands of eucalyptus trees from Australia were planted in the 1950s by Israel's early pioneers to help drain the malaria-infested Hula Valley swamps and other parts of country.
Despite an intensive schedule of coursework and field trips, Lynette did manage to take some time at the end of the program to experience Israel on her own. She took the opportunity of free time to visit Jerusalem and Yad Vashem, Israel's national museum dedicated to perpetuating the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
"I believe the best way to find out about another's culture is through their art galleries and museums," Lynette said about her experience. "I was shocked to learn about what happened to the Jewish people in Europe during World War II, especially to women and children. But, I was equally amazed how your people emerged from the ashes and this gave me a sense of hope and inspiration."
The Aboriginal people have been fighting with the Australian government to recognize the injustices done to them throughout the years of colonial settlement, particularly the removal of Aboriginal children from their parents in the 1950s in a misguided policy of assimilation. It has only been recently that the government has worked to improve Aboriginal health, education and land rights. Aboriginal leaders, like Lynette, continue to work in their fields with the aim of presenting their unique and indigenous viewpoints and as a means to bring about some form of reconciliation.
Back in Australia, with the lessons she learned from her course in Israel still fresh in her head, Lynette is busy working on new projects and writing up government policy submissions that will affect the future of the local indigenous people.
In fact, she has recently started a new position as manager of cultural and natural resources with the Australian Ministry of Environment in the Uluru Kata-Tjuta National Park in Central Australia. Closer to home, she is now responsible for ensuring the values and concerns of the Anangu people, who jointly manage the park with the Australian government.
As for her future, she isn't thinking that far in advance, but mentions the idea of pursuing a PhD in agricultural policy. If she succeeds, it is sure to be another Aboriginal first.