Co-Founder & CEO - Victor Hunter
Share Our Vision
The Liyan Foundation’s team uses their expertise to collaborate with the locals’ knowledge of resources to work together as effective agents of change.
“One of the things that’s always been causing me great angst has been the housing in communities. It’s always been people from outside coming in, building the houses then leaving and the local people sitting down like kangaroos just watching them. So what we want to do is have the people get involved by co-designing and co-building the houses themselves.”
Victor Hunter - Nyikina man
The Challenge
The current approach to building or rebuilding remote Indigenous communities has faced numerous challenges. While there have been positive aspects, many initiatives have encountered roadblocks during implementation or within the communities themselves due to insufficient community involvement.
Typically, non-Aboriginal contractors come in to do the work as a reactive project focusing solely on the housing issue without a holistic approach. Aboriginal community members watch from afar with a belief that the “non-Aboriginal person fixes everything”. A sense of unworthiness and disengagement that has intergenerational detriment kicks in. Buildings are erected, but poverty, ill-health and high unemployment and incarceration rates continue to escalate.
The Opportunity
The Liyan Foundation has the opportunity to transform lives as we transform communities. With social impact and education driving everything we do, our collaborative co-design and construction model actively engages local people to participate in every phase of the community planning process. This lifelong learning initiative, led by our expert team, cultivates ongoing success and fosters self-worth, confidence, a sense of responsibility, employment prospects, and improved mental health and well-being. Our two-way learning system also unites Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people collaboratively and non-hierarchically, ensuring shared learning. This also empowers locals with skills for ongoing employment and positive social-impact opportunities both inside and outside the community.
For our foundation, it’s not just about building a house. The house, along with all the supportive financial and social structures we wrap around Aboriginal people, are the mechanisms by which people change internally. We know we are successful when the people we work with, develop the confidence to make life better for themselves and their children instead of just being the receivers of goods and services in a passive way.
Join Us in Creating a
Brighter Future
The Liyan Foundation is a charity organisation that leverages collaborative community development in remote areas. Our mission is to offer lifelong learning opportunities for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people to close the gap and create a brighter future for everyone.
