Arwarbukarl Cultural Resource Association Inc.

Arwarbukarl Cultural Resource Association (ACRA) became an Incorporated body in March 2002, the organisation was formed by the need for a dedicated Cultural and Language organisation in the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie area, Awabakal Country. It was formed by two Aboriginal men, Abie Wright and Daryn McKenny, both of whom were born and bred in Awabakal country. With descendancy links to other Aboriginal countries within NSW, namely Gamillaray and Aaniwan, being born in Awabakal country strengthened our desire to do what ever we can to assist in the preservation and dissemination of Awabakal culture, language and history, and as a whole to do whatever we can through language and culture to strengthen not only our Aboriginal identity but others as well. Whilst still in our infancy we have accomplished many things to assist in getting us to where we are today, some examples of these are:

• Bringing awareness to hundreds of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children and adults about our culture and heritage.
• Touring outback NSW and participating in NAIDOC days with schools in the form of dance, song and other activities.
• Assembling the highly regarded Awabakal Dancers who have performed at many special occasions.
• Learned from Uncle Roy Barker of Lightning Ridge the rare skills needed to continue the practise of Aboriginal artefact making, currently examples of our work are on display with the Newcastle Regional Museum in the permanent exhibition titled "Us Mob".
• Manage the reclaimation and revitilisation of the local Awabakal Language.
• Develop ground breaking computer language tools to aid Aboriginal Language workers.

A lot of people will now know Abie Wright as a member of the highly acclaimed Aboriginal Hip Hop Group known as Street Warriors, a group who now use modern Hip Hop/Rap music to get there messages across to the youth of today. Abie now works permenantly with Street Warriors but still stays involved with our current work. Today, ACRA's main focus is our work with our traditional languages for which we are funded by the Federal Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA) under the Maintenance for Indigenous Languages Research program. We involve ourself in two main activities of language they are:

1. Awabakal Language Reclaimation and Revitilisation
2. Development and training of Computer tools to aid Aboriginal Language work.

Our goal is to become Australia's leading Aboriginal Organisation developing empowering our people through technology to be successful in preserving and disseminating Australia's original languages.