Elena Weatherall is the CEO of the Glen Innes Local Aboriginal Land Council, a role she took on 11 months ago. Local Area Land Councils [LALC] are part of the network of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council. Its purpose is to acquire land through claim or purchase, establish commercial enterprises to support a sustainable economic base for Aboriginal communities and to maintain and enhance Aboriginal culture and heritage.
Local business enterprises include tourism and activities such as weed spraying, pest management and hazard reduction. Elena is keen to see local Aboriginal traditions and beliefs showcased. “I love multiculturalism and diversity and learning about others, just as I want other people to learn about us.”
One such showcase of Aboriginal traditions was the Cultural Burn held at The Willows, or Ngarabal Dhaarii, last year. Cultural Burning is a traditional Aboriginal land management practice used to reduce fire hazards and protect the landscape. Although used by Aboriginal people for over 60,000 years, until quite recently it was not practised more widely. The Cultural Burn brought Aboriginal people and the wider community together to protect the land. Elena said that she and the LALC are now considering other cultural practices that might benefit the whole community.
The Ngarabul People and Glen Innes LALC are custodians of The Willows and Elena loves to take her visiting friends and business associates there. It is a pristine location along the Severn River, just 30 minutes from Glen Innes on the Strathbogie Road. Known for its fishing, birdwatching and walking tracks, visitors can stay in its campsites and bunkhouses, or use the conference facilities. (To find out more or book, phone Glen Innes LALC on 6732 1150)
Although born in Brisbane, Elena’s connection with Glen Innes extends over several generations. A proud Ngarabul woman, she recalls stories of her mother, grandmother and great grandmother who were all raised on The Common, Glen Innes. Her father migrated to Australia from Italy in the 1960s.
Much of Elena’s childhood was peripatetic, but she was able to spend many holidays in Glen Innes and at different times attended Glen Innes Public School, Glen Innes High School and the TAFE and built significant friendships here, some of which have continued to this day. She always felt a strong connection with Glen Innes, which was “like a long rope that kept pulling me back.” She always knew she would return and work here one day, finally moving home in 2021 “When I was coming down the hill and saw the line of poplar trees, I cried with happiness.”
On her return, the plan was to grow her business, Gaayili Gii Gunthi which is Gamilaraay language for Child Heart Home. This business delivers a Cultural Awareness and Belonging Across Ages program. She also consults with businesses and organisations developing their Reconciliation Action Plans, and reviews and advises businesses and organisations on their policies and procedures relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
So what does she think would make Glen Innes even better? Elena says future planning needs to better balance our community’s needs over focusing too much on what tourists want. She emphasised that young people must be included in those conversations about their future.
Elena believes that giving young people a chance to be heard is imperative if we want to understand the challenges they face, especially as negative press about young people seems to be growing. Certainly youth violence needs to be counteracted and Elena’s team has been proactive here. She says we need to be asking why these problems are arising. Kids are not usually born bad, so let’s tackle the back story, why is violent behaviour apparently on the increase? How can we as a community guide and support those young people who are offending to make more positive decisions?
When she is not working, Elena loves to sing and write and in a tribute to Ngarabul people wrote the poem ‘I am Ngarabul’ after she returned to Glen Innes. Before she came home she wrote the longer poem which is untitled, but she said it is inspired by The Common (featured below). It is dedicated to her mother, Leonie Williams Weatherall.
What is Elena’s favourite thing about living in Glen Innes? “I love being back on my mother’s country, and the connection I feel for this place. I can be having the worst day, with everything going wrong, and I can still feel gratified to be living here. When I think of Ngarabul country, I feel part of that line of women – my Great-gran, my Gran and my Mum.”
What of the trees that stood like ghosts
Casting ghoulish shadows upon the stones
That lay bare there in a dry creek bed
Just a few feet from where they lay there heads
In those old tin shacks, grouped in the paddock
With thick tufts of grass, only destroyable by mattock
That place that was flat and when the wind blew
You would think that the ancestors were talking to you
The feeling you get standing on that ground
Tears to my eyes as I looked around
An odd sensation, a feeling of wretch
The memories told that i would like to forget
Yet standing upon the vacant plot
The feelings stirred emotions besot
I longed to return to this once familiar place
To sit and think about my race
What can I do to keep my culture alive
How can I prosper, cultivate, survive
The answer still lost or left for someone else
Who may just happen to find themselves
At the edge of a creekbed
Dry from no rain
Where families lived. But now none
Written and felt by Elena Weatherall
