Cultural practices, which have been passed down by generations for thousands of years, are essential for preserving and promoting Indigenous identity and heritage. However, if the young generations are disengaged and disconnected, the continuity of those practices is under threat.
This is where Desert Pea Media (DPM), a charity organisation that furthers social impact through creative platforms, comes in. DPM delivers media programs, storytelling, education, cultural connection and identity programs to amplify Indigenous voices. Using creative methods, DPM works across the intersection of health, education, employment and other social impact areas to engage young people and empower them to speak with an authentic voice about difficult conversations.
At the THRIVE National Youth Summit, Toby Finlayson and Maf Priestley, DPM’s co-founders, will discuss how storytelling can inspire social change and amplify the voice of disengaged Indigenous youth. Read on for our Q&A session with them.
What creative engagement methods can we use to empower disengaged young people?
Toby Finlayson: When we’re talking about disengaged young people, we’re talking about a lot of intersecting social issues. For Aboriginal people, it can all be tracked back to culture, language and country. The impacts of colonisation have created a complex set of social issues, causing disengagement and disconnection for Indigenous young people.
Aboriginal people have always been using storytelling and creativity to communicate, educate and map out history. At DPM, we use that cultural practice of someone telling stories through music, film, performance, theatre, etc, to cross the bridge between health, education and culture.
Creativity is the special recipe, creating an environment where young people feel safe to talk about difficult things in a non-confrontational way. The creative process is fun, non-threatening and engaging, so it doesn’t feel like therapy. It’s safe. It doesn’t feel like they’re sitting in the classroom, and it takes away some of the authoritarian elements in contemporary education. We’re not telling them what to think or feel when circling the conversation around a shared purpose.
Maf Priestley: The number one thing that we must think about is what we call generational trauma. It’s a tricky one because a lot of our young people and their moms and dads are in denial of it. They don’t know how to deal with some of the traumas that they are living with.
People deal with trauma in ways they don’t even realise. Our projects are awakening true potential in young people through the essence of culture, a practice of living. Our programs help community members get to a place where they can listen to themselves one moment with their mom, dad, grandmother or grandfather. There’s peace in making sure that everyone sees the realities (social issues) of what’s going on in the community right here, right now. It’s our people themselves who make the foundation of our community.
It’s all about getting to the process of true love because Aboriginal culture is based only on one thing: the purity of love. And all people are searching for that love.
How does valuing reciprocity and promoting long-term sustainability help build strong relationships and communities?
Toby Finlayson: The evolution of our organisation has been based on a series of evaluations we’ve done. We did some research on the social impact of our programs in about fifteen communities around Australia, and these communities said that they want to see DPM do more long-term legacy-building programs. They want us to keep doing what we do, but they want more of it, and more regularly.
That led us to do some soul-searching about how we make that happen. Finding the resources to sustain long-term programs in communities is a very difficult process. Part of that is about relationship development. We’re doing conferences, screenings and summits, talking to more people and networking around what we do.
Reciprocity in relationships – be it organisational, community or funding relationships – is what enables long-term social impact. It’s about how we build reciprocal relationships where we, as well as the communities and funding bodies, are supported and have a good two-way relationship across the board that can co-manage long-term commitments in the community.
It’s our responsibility to realise that Aboriginal people have been experiencing fatigue for many years due to short programs with very limited genuine outcomes. They want to see real change. We want to see real change, and we’re talking about a serious situation – youth incarceration for Indigenous people is at a crisis level in Australia. Communities are telling us how to deal with issues like that, and we need to listen. But we need resources, so that means relationships.
Maf Priestley: It’s been a couple of decades that we’ve been doing this in over 90 Indigenous communities around Australia, and we’re talking about nearly four generations of family members that our work has impacted. Now, for us, it’s all about sustainability and partnerships. It’s about investment. There’s an opportunity here to build on 23 years of community relationships and reputation, as DPM shifts to longer, more sustainable community programs. If we can make it more sustainable not only within communities, for DPM, and for all Indigenous nations within our great country, everyone benefits. This helps keep the oldest living culture on earth alive.
Everyone’s got a responsibility to our country. People might understand the responsibility because what we talk about is the oldest living and continuous culture in the world.
How can we place Indigenous young people’s voices, experiences and solutions at the heart of decision-making and program design?
Toby Finlayson: Trust is the main thing. Aboriginal people are consulted, evaluated and studied more than anyone in the world. But having genuine, authentic consultation with young people and centring their perspectives at the core of decision-making requires trust. You need to have reciprocal relationships with young people for them to feel safe enough to say what they think.
Young people have unique perspectives on a whole range of social and cultural issues that affect us here in Australia, so we need to centre them accurately in decision-making, policy, etc. They need to have faith in the process, which is the fundamental flaw in a lot of programs. Aboriginal people especially see the holes in those programs, the places where funding is poured into communities (but no change happens), and they’re exhausted and sick of it.
That’s why creative processes create a safer environment for young people and DPM’s work is successful.
Maf Priestley: Most importantly, people tend to forget opportunity, and that’s why we create opportunity in the community. Without opportunities and options, young people in our culture will move out. When we look back at the last two decades of our work, we can see the impact of opportunity in every single kid’s eyes. It creates creativity within the community.
How can we create space for intergenerational dialogue and storytelling to honour cultural knowledge, strengthen identity and guide future generations?
Toby Finlayson: It’s a very interesting but difficult conversation, something that’s affecting Indigenous people globally now. The impact of technology, social media, devices and mobile phones is that contemporary culture now supersedes traditional knowledge systems. We encounter it in every community, with Elders talking about how young people are more interested in playing video games than spending time, having intergenerational dialogue with them, and learning about history and culture. That cultural knowledge is vital in the systems that Indigenous people use to maintain their education and knowledge transfer.
The only way to encourage intergenerational dialogue and storytelling is to create safe spaces for them to happen. DPM creates a bridge between those two generations. We’re using film and media to get young people sitting and talking to the Elders. The bait is the rap song, the social media experience, releasing the song, and then being on Facebook and YouTube. But the pathway to that is to sit with elders, learn and talk about history and culture, and analyse social issues. That seems to work.
Maf Priestley: We use media to tell stories. Every form of media where we can tell stories within the community is beautiful because it allows the community to embrace this tech. No matter what we do, it’s just going to grow. If young people grab and embrace it properly, it won’t be a burden. It’s a gift, and we can use it properly – to embrace culture in ways we haven’t before.
Is there anything you want to add or highlight? What should people look forward to in your session?
Toby Finlayson: The session is going to focus on a new long-term engagement strategy that we’ve been piloting in communities in Australia called the Crossroads program. It fuses together creative processes, training and mentoring, employment pathways, and ongoing community relationships and networks for social impact. We’ll be presenting a lot of that work from over the last few years.
Maf Priestley: It’s all about inspiring people and making them understand the impact. And the beautiful thing about this is getting the community to look at the community. It’s what Crossroads exactly does: it links investors and stakeholders so that they can look at the process of investing in their own communities.
What I’ll show people at our presentation is the process of true love. A lot of people shy away from it because they have never experienced it in their lives. But that’s what Aboriginal culture is all about.
Find out how organisations like Desert Pea Media amplify social impact among Indigenous communities. Secure your spot for THRIVE 2025 here.
Geraldine is currently the Content Producer for Third Sector, an Akolade channel. Throughout her career, she has written for various industries and international audiences. Her love for writing extends beyond the corporate world, as she also works as a volunteer writer at her local church. Aside from writing, she is also fond of joining fun runs and watching musicals.
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