Thamarrurr Rangers – “Rubbish” Art Competition August 2015.
Thamarrurr Rangers are part of the Australian Marine Debris Initiative, which is dedicated to cleaning rubbish along beaches and protecting the coastlines across Australia. Our Ranger group collects rubbish along beaches and in inlets to stop pollution entering the ocean and clean up beaches.
In May 2015 Heidi Taylor of Tangaroa Blue Foundation visited us in Wadeye to provide training, ideas and support on Marine Debris projects. made from rubbish. During this visit Heidi helped Rangers develop a Source Reduction Plan (SRP) for Wadeye. In the SRP Rangers decided to include a Competition of Art works made from rubbish, this completion would be open to all in the community and would be put on display and judged during the Wadeye festival 21-22 August.
The message of the competition was ‘no rubbish on country’, and our women Ranger team worked hard over many weeks to spread the message working with the school, women’s group and crèche to provide an educational message, as well as ideas and inspiration for art projects. They also made posters and flyers as information and motivation for the community to get involved.
The women rangers also worked hard to receive generous donations for the competition from many businesses in the community. There was a lot of interest with a total of 16 entries in the competition, and we had adult and kids categories. Many people came down and voted on their favourite artwork. All the votes were checked and the art with the most votes won major prizes including a washing machine, cash vouchers for the local shop and butcher, food hamper. Other entries received a prize for participation such as books, footballs, T-shirts, hats and handmade soaps.
We would like to thank all the generous donations and support of the community and also all the hard work of our women rangers for helping make this project a success.
We would also like to be able to run a similar project next year, and every year if possible, and would like support to help us make this happen.
Thanks,
Thamarrurr Rangers.
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