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White Springs Mission

 

In 2008, Wangka Maya staff and Ngarla Elder Sandy Brown travelled to the site where White Springs Mission was established in the 1950s to document the location. Brett Derschow, Martin Humphreys, Marieke Martin and Andrew Spratt filmed the location to add to historical records about the mission's establishment and subsequent quick closure.

 

The Mission lasted less than four years and was established to train Aboriginal people to work on stations. However, a combination of factors led to the mission's closure including Aboriginal people's growing independence, a lack of money, a serious white ant problem and staffing issues. Some old documents attest to the mission's establishment as a way of 'breaking' the Aboriginal Strikes of 1946 by training Aboriginal people to be workers on the stations.