Women’s ‘bra’ initiative

 FOUR indigenous women from the Kimberley, Western Australia, will travel to a remote village in PNG next month to speak at a special women’s convention.

Kununurra woman Natasha Short is organising the trip to the village of Numba, Northern province, only accessible by seaplane.

It will also include women from Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing and Derby. The women have been fund-raising to buy gifts for the women in PNG.

One of their fund-raising methods was selling bras, donated by a charity group, to women in the Kimberley.

The money raised will be donated to the women in PNG.

“I have been selling the bras for A$5 each and I get the women who buy them to write on the back of a card a message of hope for someone they will never meet in Papua New Guinea,” she said.

“It’s just sharing what we share as women.

“The village is in the middle of nowhere and they live in bamboo huts.

“There is no electricity and no running water.”

Short said fund-raising had also taken place at recent local International Women’s Day functions.

“I thought International Women’s Day was a great opportunity for women here to appreciate the hardships and adversity women over there are facing,” she said.

Short said a function in Kununurra by Kununurra Neighbourhood House recently raised $400 and one at Joongari House in Wyndham raised the same amount.

“The women in PNG are really beautiful people and being affluent Australians we can certainly make a big impact in nations that don’t have what we have if we are willing to share,” she said.

“This is the second time that I am taking a group of Aboriginal ladies over there.”

The women leave on the two week trip on May 10.