An initiative of the Rumbalara Football Netball Club, the centre partners the club with the Kaiela Institute and University of Melbourne, with support from the Victorian Government and Greater Shepparton City Council.
Its intention is to foster social and economic prosperity in the Goulburn-Murray region as the home of the Academy of Sport, Health and Education and by delivering a broad range of vocational and higher education and training services.
Munarra chair Travis Morgan said the centre would combine typical educational outcomes with the traditional lessons to be learnt from Yorta Yorta culture.
“Education, not just from a western culture, but from a traditional culture of Yorta Yorta values as well and how we can mould the two in together, so I think it’s really important we look back on our old people and the stories and values that they’re passing on to us and looking forward on how we forge a new way forward in terms of being part of a western society and being welcomed into that world and leading it as well,” he said.
Kaiela Institute chair Paul Briggs, who played a key role in getting the Munarra project supported, said it had been a long process getting to the point of being able to build.
“We actively started pursuing it in the early 1980s and we bought the adjacent bit of land for the (Rumbalara) football netball club in 1991 and proposed the Munarra centre in 2008,” he said.
Uncle Paul said it would be an investment in the Yorta Yorta community and would help young people assert their own unique place in the world.
“So that we’re not defined by our deficits,” he said.
“The majority of mainstream people see our definition as a deficit, taxpayer-dependent body of people with not a lot of value to contribute.
“We’re shifting that because, one, we’ve got to isolate ourselves from that noise, and then build our own sense of future and really claim the industry and claim the economy as our future.
“We have to do that as people, otherwise we can’t survive.”
University of Melbourne vice-president for strategy and culture Julie Wells said the centre would “change lives” when operational.
“As an Indigenous-led hub for learning, innovation and community development, it presents huge opportunities for economic and social development in the Goulburn Valley, and reaching this point is a massive credit to the people of this community,” Dr Wells said.
Construction will be done by First Nations majority-owned company TVN On-Country.
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