Ahead of NAIDOC Week, the METRONET Noongar Reference Group has won the Heal Country Award as part of this year’s NAIDOC Perth Awards, marking an exciting achievement for the group and for the Gnarla Biddi Strategy.

The award aligns with the theme of this year’s NAIDOC Week, Heal Country, for those that contribute to Healing Country which means to provide greater management, involvement, and empowerment by Indigenous peoples over country. The METRONET Noongar Reference Group structure and Gnarla Biddi model is an innovative approach for infrastructure projects and represents collaborative reform with our Aboriginal stakeholders.

The METRONET Noongar Reference Group plays an important role in our projects, providing advice and input into the Noongar Cultural Recognition and Noongar Cultural Input into Place Making engagement streams, as well as the development of the Noongar Cultural Context Documents developed for each project.

The Group is also playing a critical role in the development of the METRONET Noongar Place Names project.

Thank you to the NAIDOC Perth Committee for this special recognition, along with award sponsor Djana Koodal, and to the runner-up finalists Djurpin Djindas.