BACKGROUND
Reconciliation Australia is dedicated to closing the unacceptable 17-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children. One of Reconciliation Australia's key strategies in achieving that ambition is to support and encourage organisations to sign up to their own tailored Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP).
A RAP is a tool to help organisations to build positive relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. It provides a format for exploring how reconciliation can advance our business/organisational objectives. And it's our public contribution towards the national effort to close the 17-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children.
The Pilbara Development Commission's Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) is currently in draft form after being developed during 2008. In developing the Commission's RAP a series of internal conversations involving all staff within the Pilbara Development Commission (The Commission) was conducted. This included officers currently involved in Indigenous specific issues. In conjunction with this a small working group was established which included internal and external participants along with Indigenous representatives.
Members of the Pilbara Development Commissions board were also involved in developing the Commissions Reconciliation Action Plan. The board has local Indigenous representation. External stakeholders participated in discussions and they consisted of local Indigenous people involved with small business, private companies, Government departments and agencies.
The RAP has been developed to act on the commitment the Pilbara Development Commission has made to work to address the inequalities experienced by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to help achieve self determination and health equality for Indigenous people. The development of the RAP represents an important strategic objective for the Commission.
LATEST UPDATE
The Commission aims to complete their Reconciliation Action Plan by the end of 2009. Once this has been achieved the RAP will be publicly available on the PDC's website with the RAP being officially launched at a date to be announced in the near future.
CONTACT
Lee Sweeney
Aboriginal Economic Development Officer
Phone: (08) 9173 8410
lee.sweeney@pdc.wa.gov.au
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