She's On The Money - Celebrating NAIDOC Week with Evolve Communities

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

Today we celebrate NAIDOC week with our friends Aunty Munya and Carla Rogers from Evolve Communities. They share their insights on the challenges faced by black businesses in Australia, how we can show up as allies, how businesses can be more inclusive and so much more. They also reflect in this year’s NAIDOC theme – Keep the fire burning! Blak, loud and proud. Check out the amazing work of Evolve Communities here. Acknowledgement of Country By Natarsha Bamblett aka Queen Acknowledgements. The advice shared on She's On The Money is general in nature and does not consider your individual circumstances. She's On The Money exists purely for educational purposes and should not be relied upon to make an investment or financial decision. If you do choose to buy a financial product, read the PDS, TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored towards your needs.  Victoria Devine and She's On The Money are authorised representatives of Money Sherpa PTY LTD ABN - 321649 27708,  AFSL - 451289.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello, my name is Natasha Nabanunga-Bamblett. I'm a proud Yorta Yorta, Kernai, Wolperi and Awadjeri woman. And before we get started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which this podcast is recorded on Awadjeri country, acknowledging the elders, the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling of you to make a difference for today and lasting impact for tomorrow. Let's get into it. She's on the money. She's on the money.

Hello and welcome to She's on the Money, the podcast for millennials who want financial freedom. My name is Bec Syed and with me is Victoria Devine. Happy NAIDOC Week, VD. Oh, thank you. I am very excited about this. Happy NAIDOC Week. NAIDOC Week celebrates and recognises the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and we thought it was a wonderful opportunity to welcome back friends of the show and two very special women, the two directors of Evolve Communities, Aunty Manya Andrews and Carla Rogers. Friends, welcome back. Great to be here. It's so great to be here. Thank you. We love the show. We're number one fans. Oh, you are so cute. We are also so excited to have you

guys back because today we're going to be chatting about the challenges faced by black businesses in Australia, how we can actually show up as allies and how businesses can be more inclusive and honestly, so much more. But to start off, guys, what does this year's NAIDOC theme, Keep the Fire Burning, Black, Loud and Proud, mean to you? Keep the fires burning. It's about keeping the spirit alive, spirit of country, spirit of ancestors and spirit of culture. Keep that burning because that's what guides us through life. And long as the fires are maintained, then we're maintained and sustained. So for me on that very large a level. What about you Carla? Yeah so as a non-Indigenous ally it's very much keeping the

fire alive in the belly of supporting First Nations people and also the fire alive of us as non-Indigenous Australians learning from First Nations wisdom, learning from the oldest continuous culture in the world. There's so many ways that we can grow and heal as a country if we were to to open our hearts and minds to First Nations people and their wisdom and always I have found First Nations people so generous and receptive and opening up their hands, inviting us to come in on that journey with them. That's really, really beautifully said.

Now Evolve Communities exists to build awareness of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and encourage reconciliation and allyship. I can see literally that you guys have such a nice and close connection and comfort between you both. How did you come to the place of creating this organisation and how did you two meet? Always a story and I'm not a quick storyteller. So I actually founded Evolve in 2005.

I was lucky to get this thing called a Churchill Fellowship, which enables you to go overseas and study something. we've exhausted all your study options in Australia. So I was looking at the involvement of First Nations people in looking after country. And when I came back, I was working in protected area management and I was getting a little bit frustrated at the pace of change in government. So I started Evolve to do this work. Fast forward about five or six years and we had a very large project up in the Gulf of Carpentaria working in remote Aboriginal communities helping them come up with their own solutions to some pretty tricky hard yarns we call them things like suicide and

alcohol and violence and so I was a non-Indigenous person leading a team of 12 Indigenous people and we needed a leader for that team and who should be recommended but Aunty Manya. Yes and And so I came on board and really then Carl and I got chatting about lots of things, but we discovered we had a similar vision and that's to create a kinder, more inclusive Australia. And so we got talking about things and realised we wanted to be out there educating people. So we decided to combine our skills where we've developed this business and our allyship programs in particular.

Yeah, so this is a pretty lofty vision. You know, it sounds very nice, a kind of more inclusive Australia, but it was very much, well, how do we do that? And that's when we thought, well, it's non-Indigenous people like me. Let's turn the lens on people like myself, the 97% of the population in Australia. And what is it? What do we need to know? What skills do we need to have? What understandings do we need to have to be confident allies and also to realise how much we have to learn and grow from this invitation?

and that's when we developed what we call the seven steps to practical reconciliation which underpins all our programs it was actually sitting on a dock I can remember where we were we were sitting on a wharf and all the kids are jumping off the jetty and everything yeah and beautiful blue water and that's the genesis I guess of a lot of these thoughts and frameworks and programs yeah so not in a fancy boardroom in a dock or on a dock I should say that's much cooler than the way that we come up with ideas, Bec. Oh, yeah. I think we need to sit on a dock, play that song in the background. Yeah, I feel like it sounds good. But I want to know more because I feel like something that I have been really passionate about since having you on the

show a couple of years ago, it's just getting more people across what you guys do. And I feel like you are popping up more and more. Like Aunty Manya, I see you on TikTok all the time. It's one of my favourite things ever. I feel like you are one of the warmest souls. Like you answer the questions so beautifully. And it just feels honestly like a little wholesome corner of the internet. It's my favourite. But I want to know a bit more about the, I guess, idea that is so central to what Evolve do. Allyship for all of us. How are we working towards that and achieving that? And, you know, what can we do as the She's On The Money community to more actively work towards that? Yeah, really beautiful question. And just you having us on the show today and

everyone in your community that we're reaching out to now this is an act of allyship yes so you're doing it right now yeah anyone listening is doing it right now and what we emphasize at evolve is that the first step in allyship is self-education but it doesn't have to be complex things it can be things you can incorporate into your everyday finding out more about who the traditional owners are where you live or people might be familiar with you know the cultural protocol and acknowledgement of country and some people often aren't familiar with that protocol and may not know the difference for example between a welcome to country and acknowledgement of country it's such an important protocol a welcome can only be done by a traditional owner

from the land on which you're meeting or speaking but an acknowledgement can be done by anybody so it's just such a practical step that we can all take and when we're teaching people about how to acknowledge country authentically we take you through a meditation where you put yourself in a place that you really feel connected to country so even if you want to think about that now you know is it at the beach is it out on the lawn you know it could be anywhere and then going to that place and then we take you through a visualization of how do you feel in that place and what makes it special for you and hear the wind and what are the sounds you hear around you and then just leaning into that feeling of gratitude because we all have a deep connection to country

and for First Nations people country is family so that's why a lot of our best ideas probably do come when we're out in country and what we would encourage your listeners to do after listening to this podcast when you can is go outside and you know if you can go onto a lawn or somewhere and take your shoes off and think that where you're standing right now for tens of thousands of years people have walked before you and think of those footprints and the footprints of the people that are coming and then take that sense into when you're acknowledging country you don't have to wait for a formal meeting to acknowledge country have a go when you go for your walk today and I'll even put that to both of you like after the podcast if you go for

a walk or if you're looking at your beautiful new baby you know have a think about well who the traditional owners are and why do you feel grateful for living on this country and expressing that gratitude so this is what we emphasize is that allyship is those sort of acts that feel genuine to you yeah it's about acknowledging the wisdom and feeling deeply grateful for what we all share here now living on this country in australia auntie mania what would you add to that Oh, yeah. No, the other thing is that I think people may not know is that by acknowledging our ancestors, it's also about blessing you or getting protection. Australia is such a large country, it's easy to get lost. But if you acknowledge the ancestors, they'll guide you

and will prevent you from being lost. And so it's about protecting yourself as well. So you get benefits from that as well. You know, you might be about to step on a dangerous snake, for instance, but if you've acknowledged their ancestors, they'll look after you. I adore that so much. I think so many times when people are first introduced to this concept of allyship, you could draw the assumption that allyship is really about doing something for others. And it is. You forget about how much you get out of it personally, like acknowledgement to country and just being able to connect, like who doesn't love the feeling of sand between their toes or, you know, fresh cut grass under their feet, or just feeling like you got out of the office today into the beautiful

fresh air. Like, I feel like it gives you such a deeper sense of connection that ultimately impacts your mental health. It impacts your physical health. Like you become a better, more rounded human by connecting in with this it's like we talk about gratitude and how important gratitude is in everyday life but by extending it and understanding where that comes from you just have this deeper understanding of the world you have a deeper connection with gratitude but also a deeper connection with gratefulness like I just feel so grateful to be walking on the land that you know people have looked after for years and years and years before me like hundreds of millions of years before me, this land was walked by other people. And isn't it beautiful to not only

acknowledge that, but really think about their journeys and how they're now guiding us and that their decisions really paved the way for us and what we are able to achieve today. I don't know, I just feel like it's selfish, but I get so much out of allyship. And that's not why we do it, but I adore it. I completely agree. And you know, it's about acknowledging our ancestors, the ones who went before us. And they're not just my ancestors, they're your ancestors as well, because you live in this country and they're the ones who came before you. And so it's getting in touch with them so that they're walking beside us at all times. And they walked so we could continue walking. And I think that that's why it's so important to acknowledge and just,

you know, really deeply connect with that, not just because it's important, but because it becomes intrinsic in who we are and if we don't understand who we are or where we've come from how do we understand where we're going and actually have a good beautiful big impact like I'm just obviously passionate about this not nearly as wildly passionate as you guys which is why I was like please get them on the show they're so much better at this they just kill it every single time I want to talk about I guess what do we need to know when it comes to being really effective and competent allies beyond what we've been discussing where do we begin that journey if we've never done it before how do we start and I know Carla you said before like get out standing

the grass like what are some practical tips that I could bring to either my friendship circle or my workplace or you know my home and family that means that I can become an ally if it's not something that I have considered or really valued before today the first step is always self-education and it's interesting what you say about self-reflection and learning more about yourself. All of our programs are very experiential and immersive and they're really about self-reflection. It's like anything, I guess, you know that adage

that you teach what you most need to know? Yes. I'm here because obviously what I most need to know in life is how to be an ally. So how do I do that as I teach others? A big part of that teaching is sharing the many mistakes I've made over five decades as an ally so where do you start is self-learning and for example we've got loads of resources we've got a big bold obsession to have 10 million more half of

Australia as allies so we obviously we need lots of touch points for that so that's why we've got things like ask auntie ask an ally and all sorts of resources on the internet and we actually have this framework of seven steps. And we can touch on what each of those are, but where you start is self-education. There's so many ways you can do that. It's watching programs on TV. There's so much Indigenous content now on mainstream media, reading books, but listening to people's stories. So probably where do you start? If we had to put it in one word, it would be listen. I really like that. Start with yourself and start with listening. Start with wanting to educate yourself and start with, yeah, just becoming open and exposing yourself to different

stories, different experiences, different things like that. I think it's a really beautiful way to start and it's really, really beautifully worded. I think we should go to a really quick break. Yeah, because on the flip side, we're going to be talking about Evolve and how they've been involved with some of Australia's biggest companies, but also how we as individuals and how businesses can develop and attract and really champion Indigenous talent. So guys, don't go anywhere. Welcome back, everyone. Today we have Carla and Aunty Manya joining us. I just wanted to jump into Evolve. So Evolve has been used by Australia's biggest companies, Adobe, IBM, Woolworths. And the actual government. And the literal government. The literal government

did it. Just to name a few. To help understand Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and protocols, build allies and create more inclusive businesses through their programs. guys what are some of the biggest challenges you think businesses face when looking to be more inclusive think about inclusivity to do it properly i guess it's the dna of the business it's who you are as a business so it's your whole culture the thing that's less scary is we talk a lot about what we have to learn from first nations wisdom now if there's anything that we can learn from First Nations people, it's about inclusion and belonging. They've been doing it for tens of thousands of years.

One of our seven steps is about Aboriginal kinship and we do an exercise where everyone is given a skin name. So, Aunty Mun, do you just want to explain what skin is? Yeah, so right across Australia, all of the nations were divided into kinship groups. The term we use in Northern Australia is skin, S-K-I-N. There are its equivalents in the southern areas. For instance, in New South Wales, the term used to be meat, M-E-A-T.

So when people met up with each other, they would ask, what's your meat? Meaning, what's your skin? So people would say, oh, it's possum or kangaroo or koala. So that everybody's divided into skin groups and each skin group, well, we're all related to each other, but has a particular relationship with another group in that society. It's a bit like having star signs, I suppose, that there are some star signs that are compatible with others. Skin groups determine who you can marry, for instance, and so forth, and sets out particular obligations to each other right across the country. Now, how many skin groups there were

differed according to the nations. The one that we teach in our Google Just system has eight skin groups. Some have four, six, eight, 16, 32 and so forth. 64 are one of the highest groups in the Northern Territory. So that's what skin is. In this exercise, everyone's given their skin name. We explain all the different relationships. It turns into a lot of fun when people have got to run around and find all their yellows and we explain the different connections. So we actually use strings so there's this beautiful web of connections and then when we talk about the impact of colonization we literally go through and sever those connections with scissors and it's just like there's gasps in the room like the grief and the disconnection is palpable

then after going through this whole activity and explaining the extended aboriginal families how inclusive they are we ask people to think you know what are their insights from this activity and the main insights are that you know everyone's connected you feel valued you belong you have a role you're clear on your role and there's this beautiful web of care in this kinship system and then we're like okay that's fantastic so how are you going to apply that to your own self and your own leadership and then the culture in the workplace so circling back to your original question well what's one of the main challenges i think is that as organizations we don't see how holistic this question of inclusivity is but we have this amazing belief system this amazing

reality that's been successful for tens of thousands of years about belonging and inclusion it's not just a HR buzzword in this system there's a model there for us to learn from now what stands out from that model for me it's human needs that we all share this need to feel that you belong in the workplace that you need to be able to express yourself in the workplace so in that sense the needs of creating an inclusive workplace are common they're not that complex so I think the biggest challenge is seeing that it's holistic that it's about your whole organizational culture and it's not something that can be just achieved with one training program ticker box I was gonna say that I feel like so many times inclusion programs are

just tick box exercises they fill a quota they have a number and they meet it and they go great no worries you know we have hired the right amount of Indigenous Australians and you just go do you realize how much they have to offer do you realize like the beauty that they bring to your culture to your environment and you're not taking advantage of that like you're not making the most of this situation. Like it is a privilege. And I think that often it is that tick box exercise. And that's really sad and it shouldn't be. And you're so right, Carla, it goes beyond that. Like we're not making the most of a pre-existing format and a pre-existing framework of diversity and inclusion and working together and how to exist harmoniously. And I just think

that's wild that we're not doing that. You can see how confronting it would be for big organizations who basically have no culture and don't do those things, it's a big change. So we're talking about transformation. Some of our clients, and one of those, for example, is a not-for-profit we've worked with for eight years now. They do put all of this team through our programs. And it's very evidence-based. They've seen major shifts in the organization. there's two big things here we're talking about one goes back to our vision at Evolve and that's a kind of more inclusive Australia that celebrates and learns from First Nations wisdom and peoples so there's a real emphasis on that yes we don't come from a deficit approach we come from a

strength-based approach like what is it and it's so true Victoria like we ran a program six years ago and it was called Bull by the Horns. It was about leadership and what we as leaders can learn from Indigenous wisdom. When we first were promoting that program, we had so many people come to us and say, oh, fantastic. I've got an Aboriginal manager. I really want to put them through this program. And we're like, wait, what? No, you are missing the point. Babe, it's you that needs to go through the program. Yeah, seriously. But that's the reality. You know, 97% of our population is non-indigenous and that's the narrative you know we've got something that's superior first nations people that's their reality that they're always expected to step in and walk

in our world the other piece that's really important to all of this is all of our programs we celebrate first nations wisdom and culture and we focus on that but your learning skills these skills are generic to all humans and to creating an inclusive workplace no matter which cultures we're talking about they're generic skills i guess i couldn't agree more i feel like so many people just miss the point even though the point is right there in front of them i want to know now how can businesses actually attract develop and champion indigenous talent i feel like you were saying something really good before carla you said so many times Indigenous people are expected to step into our way of living and our way of working

when that shouldn't be the expectation. So how can we attract talent that not only adds so much to our culture and so much to our business, but how can we make our environment a place that they want to be? We've just literally finished writing a program on this, haven't we, Auntie Maria? Yes. which we're filming at the moment so our first program is called the seven steps to practical reconciliation the second program is practical allyship at work we're specifically addressing that question yes the first answer is about creating cultural safety in the workplace and it's doing all those things that we just talked about and again really encouraging people not to come at this from a deficit approach that i've got to do this but just celebrating and how much

we can grow as businesses, as a country, when we get all these benefits of learning from First Nations people and wisdom. So the first thing is looking at, well, what is the culture of our company? How inclusive and safe is it for a First Nations person to come and work here? We find that the retention rates can be so low for First Nations people because those foundations aren't in place the workplace is very culturally unsafe so that's the first place to start if you're really serious about this is to looking at doing an audit of existing cultural safety now that organization that I referred to before our longest partner they actually came to us wanting Evolve to help them do exactly this attract and retain traineeships now that was

like eight years ago what we ended up doing with them was the first six years was focused on building cultural safety and competency in the organization because they realized that their traineeships were failing because there just wasn't that level of cultural safety in the workplace and that's hard for them like and i'm not saying that's hard in terms of oh they've got to do some work that would be a hard realization to come to that you are not a safe space right now that would be challenging but the idea that they've stuck to it and said no we're going to continue this we're going to get you guys in we are changing like that's big that's impressive it's massive and they're just being so genuine about it we've mentioned cultural change but on an individual

level we're talking about behavioral change yeah and that's why everything that we do is called practical reconciliation practical allyship because auntie and i we are very practical so anything you do with us that evolve will focus on the practical outcomes what are the behaviors that we need to change what are the practical things that we can do you know anything you do with us is experiential so it's a journey of growth so like we've got lots of case studies of organizations doing this there's some organizations that we choose not to work with because we can see that it is a ticker box exercise oh good where we start with though normally is we've only got three values that evolve one is kindness and kindredness and another one is we are living

allies and what that means is that we walk our talk and that's what we ask of organizations so we usually ask for senior leaders the executive to go through our programs first yeah yeah as it should yeah completely agree i just want to know through your work in community do you have a sense of the challenges faced by black owned businesses in australia i mean we're majority indigenous owned and now our staff small team but it's half half half half yeah so i think stereotypes is probably the number one challenge there are incredible indigenous businesses out there yeah quite diverse and doing amazing things like high complex IT stuff delivering all sorts of things and I think there's still a perception yeah that Indigenous businesses only do

Indigenous things right and it's brilliant to support allyship to support reconciliation it's brilliant to buy black and buy presents from Indigenous businesses that's only a small thing Now, if you in your business need to get your air conditioning done in the building or you need the building painted, have a look and see if there's an Indigenous business doing that. There's a lot of Indigenous businesses in the service industry, in the construction industry, facility management. Yes, yeah.

So not just in cultural art-related things. Yeah. So I'd say that's one big challenge, Aunty Munch. Yeah, absolutely. and Supply Nation is the organisation to go to to find out what businesses are available. They have a list of providers that they can supply to you. Some of the states have Indigenous Chambers of Commerce.

So, for instance, we're a member of the New South Wales Indigenous Chamber of Commerce and they've been absolutely very helpful to us as well. We were very excited this year for Evolve won the national telstra best of business award for building communities we were finalists in two categories building communities and indigenous excellence excellence and we were just so thrilled to win building communities because it's like that's what we're about yes they got us the winner last year so in the indigenous excellence category is a business in western australia that specializes in geographic information systems.

So just like, you know, putting it out there that it's different things. And they went on to win, there's the winner of the winners nationally. So for this year, I think there was over 20,000 entrants and it's small and medium businesses. So medium businesses can have over $100 million turnover. I can tell you Evolve is not doing that.

Oh yeah, no, she's on the money isn't either, don't worry. We're on the way. And they've won that being open to Indigenous businesses doing a whole range of things and maybe having a look at what's available in Indigenous businesses first when you're buying something. And you mentioned before, Aunty Vanya, Supply Nation. So I want to just flag that now, put that in the show notes.

That is a resource that we are able to go to to find Indigenous, essentially workers across the board. So if we need someone to do some work, we can go there, check first and then go outside of that. And I think that that's actually really helpful because a lot of the time we'll say things like, oh yeah, look for this first. But let's be honest, sometimes we're like, well, I don't know where to look. Am I meant to just Google Indigenous painter, Indigenous, you know, builder? And I think that having these resources means that we can actually go, all right, well, I know that I can go there and find the right resource. And I think that

that's really practical and helpful. How else can we as consumers show up for Black businesses? So Buying Black, we put out resources that evolve each year and we'll share with you, you know, the places to go to find certified Indigenous businesses. On social media too, there's a lot of groups popping up that I find quite useful and you can join those as an ally. Like there's one on Facebook that I'm a part of now and it's for Indigenous businesses to promote what they're doing the idea of that is that non-indigenous people like myself can join that and be across and this is fairly informal so it's for new businesses that might not have gone through all the formal steps yet but all sorts of things I think just start with some

practical things I think well okay you know there's 10 birthdays I buy for I'm going to have a go at two of those buying something from an indigenous business start where it's a bit easier like when I've said that Indigenous businesses do all sorts of things, maybe you might want to start at some of the things that are a bit simpler, like obvious things like gifts. A lot of people told us Aunty Manya's children's book. Oh, I was telling you that off air, like Seasons is one of my favourite books. I know my son is only, what, 10 weeks old at this point in time. And yeah, so like he hasn't fully engaged, but it's one of my favourite books to read him. And you know, if it's my favourite, it's going to have to become his favourite. But that is a beautiful resource

that you can give to children. And I feel like kids, they connect even deeper than we can as adults who, you know, are trying to reconnect. Like kids automatically get it. It's crazy how intelligent and smart and respectful they are from the get go. I feel like a lot of things that they learn and that they express as adults are learned behaviours. And that's really sad. So I think start from when they're tiny and go from there. Completely agree. Exactly. So a lot of people did buy that book for Christmas as well this year. Genius. I had yours on pre-order for ages, Aunty Manya, and then when it arrived, I was shocked. I was like, oh my gosh, it's here, finally. The practical thing people can do whenever they buy from an Indigenous business

is to share that. We love when we saw people with photos, for example, with Aunty Manya's book and they put it on social media what's been really lovely now is we're getting a lot of preschools they're doing whole projects based on this book but if you were to buy something wearable or even sheets lately i've been buying all my linen in indigenous designs but take a photo of that share if you're on social media share on social media or if you really liked it share it with your friends hey i bought this and you know you might want to think about something like this so let's get the message out there. That's a really practical way everyone can support Indigenous businesses. I think that what you do after you've bought it is probably as important as

the act of buying it. Yes. No, I agree. I actually, I think that's funny that you say sheets, Carla, because I recently had a baby, not to keep bringing that up, but Harvey was born. And when you have a baby in Victoria, and I'm sure it's the same in every other state, they have some type of like baby bonus and so for your first baby they send you home with a baby bag and i'll send you a picture but inside the baby bag was this beautiful like muslim wrap for harvey and like everyone gets the same one and it's got the most beautiful indigenous print on there of like kangaroos and little footsteps and i'm obsessed with it it's like my favorite wrap and the second i got it i was like anu mania would love this like this is perfect and it's

just these beautiful colors and you know when you just go I wish this was something that if I had walked into like pure baby it was just on the shelves for me to purchase because it's just so nice to go this feels connected but also let's be honest the artwork is stunning why aren't we buying more of it yeah completely agree yeah actually you'll have a field day with little Harvey now there's so many beautiful products for babies now just shifting gears a little bit I want to know how have things changed for Evolve after last year's referendum? Oh, big question there. Big one. We're just going hard. We're talking about baby blankets and you're like, yes, but I want to know about the referendum. Let's get to the nitty gritty. Yeah, the referendum was

huge. I think we did like 50 online yarning webinars to different organisations about it at the time, it was devastating, the result. And so what we did at Evolve is we allowed people space for grieving. You know, everyone grieves differently. And I know many Indigenous organisations chose to have a period of grieving or sorry business. At Evolve, we decided to go straight to action

because that's how we processed it. Well, we particularly didn't want to lose sight of the fact that how many people did vote? Over 6 million people voted yes. Voted yes. And to not lose sight of that, like that was goodwill. Yeah, that's special. It's not enough, but that is special.

Yeah, and we thought that's really significant and we don't want to lose that. And so we came out with a pledge soon after the Allied Pledge asking people to take the pledge to continue to show up for First Nations peoples. Over 3,000 people signed that pledge. So we will definitely provide the link for that pledge. Oh, yes, please.

We'll put it in the show notes. And I think that that is really, really important, knowing our community. Maybe we could double that 3,000. Yeah, absolutely. And so in terms of the demand and how it's affected things, it's increased demand, if anything. So it's highlighted the importance of this conversation to continue and the role of allies. It's even further galvanised our ally community. That's why we didn't want to stop because we knew people were going

to come to us and say, what's next? We don't want to stop here. So it's actually in an odd way. I don't think the desire, the fuel, the momentum for change has been stopped. If anything, it's probably increased. I think it has. That's really good to hear actually because, yeah, it really was devastating.

it just kind of made you realize like you're kind of living in your own little bubble sometimes you're like oh everyone around me is an ally everyone around me supports this and then when you realize it's not the case it's really devastating yeah I found that very confronting as somebody who you know was the hardest of yeses I just assumed everybody else was too because like the people that I surround myself with were unequivocally yes as well and so it was kind of like well obviously it's going to be yes like you know Beck and I would talk about it talk about with our producers I'd talk about with my friends and my family and not one person even expressed that no was even an option and so I think when it came back negatively I was just

like wow I am so privileged to live in a bubble that is a yes bubble but there are still so many people who don't understand so many people who don't have that privilege and there's clearly so much work to do that it made me really think about how much we need to step up as allies and stop speaking just to our bubbles and start speaking outside of that and start going wow like you know just because it's not a problem that I see every day because I'm not experiencing it and you know the Indigenous friends that I have you know one-on-one like it's not something that we discuss because we're all just like well we're on the same page right like how do we expand that outside of the conversations that we're having and I guess that's why it's so important that

And, you know, Bec and I use She's On The Money as a voice for hopeful change and as a voice to educate us because the more of us that talk about it, the more change that can be facilitated. And sadly, it doesn't matter how much money is thrown at something like this. You can't just put money in people's mouths and hope that they're going to change their mindset. There's so much of a shift that needs to happen that's mental and so much of a shift that needs to happen that's about inclusivity.

It's not actually just about, you know, buying black. And that's supportive, but it's not just that. And I think it's reinforced by this year's message for Reconciliation Week. It's now more than ever, we need your support, you know, given the results of the referendum and moving forward. We would never be negative about people that voted no. At Evolve, we have a really simple three-step approach to allyship. partnership. Reflect, you know, identify what's the heart of the issue, relate, put yourself in the other person's shoes and reconcile, find a way forward together. Everything in life is a

mutual learning opportunity. For example, if someone said something to me that I thought was racist, I would never do anything to suggest or even think that I know better or to make that person feel they're wrong or shame blame or guilt it's a mutual learning opportunity if the other person's open to it yes this is a growth point for the country so we certainly need to have those conversations we need to understand why people voted no and continue to have those conversations exploring each other's different experiences and perspectives yeah without making one right or wrong I wasn't in the bubble. I kept putting up signs and I kept getting vandalised.

That's disgusting, honestly. Like it's not even just disappointing, it's actually disgusting. Like it's such a lack of understanding. And compassion and empathy and all of these things. Like why would you do that? And irrespective of what was on your sign, like let people have their opinions. Let people have their voice.

They deserve that. It doesn't matter if you put a sign up that said, my favourite colour is pink, and then I'm jumping up and down and being like, but I like green. Like, you can have your choice, but it's all about education, right? It is. So in that case, I did apply the three R's. I did write a piece offering to meet this person. I'd love to meet you.

I'd love to buy you some no signs. You can have your little opinion. Absolutely. That makes you a bigger person than me, Carla. Oh, I don't know about that. Then someone commented, which I didn't know what it meant at the time, but virtue signalling, which I've discovered means that you're just doing something to make yourself look good

and that's another big conversation we have around woke, but, you know, calling something woke or someone virtue signalling, they're just ways of shutting down a conversation. Yes, yes. You know, I would have loved to have talked more with that person about how was I virtue signalling and let me understand that. And also, I think that usually virtue signalling is when, say, for example, you're not actually an ally and you're not actually wanting to vote yes, but you just say you are to look

good. This is kind of different, Carla. I feel like that was a misdirected comment, Carla. There's absolutely no way someone like you was virtue signalling. Totally. You're actively putting yourself in a very uncomfortable spot where you're probably quite vulnerable and going to have your feelings hurt talking to someone who is seemingly aggressively against everything that you stand for.

And so I think it's really beautiful what you're doing. I think it's a really amazing way to go about it. So virtue signalling, I would not ever think that. Absolutely not. Call us. We'll be like, oh, no, that's not what happened. No, sit down. I think it's a lack of education on their part.

Even using the term virtue signalling to somebody like you, you'd be like, do you realise what that means? I don't think you've directed this in the right way. Completely. It was a mutual learning opportunity. Like I said, I didn't actually know what that meant. You're too kind. You accepted it and said, wow, okay,

well I will take that on board and sometimes you have to say absolutely not. Yeah well that's right being an ally it's so important to learn how to be open to feedback in this case from First Nations people and to learn from your own mistakes also important is self-care when we're talking about interrupting racism we don't suggest you do it in every situation you know it's got to be a situation that's safe for you as an ally you've still got to look after yourself for us non-indigenous allies at Evolve during The Voice, 26th of January is saying, where can we step up and take the cultural load of Aunty Manya and our First Nation team members? That's huge. But even through the 26th of January this year, even as a non-Indigenous ally and Director of Evolve, I had to step back a

bit too. You know, I had to realise my limits around self-care. Some of the commentary on the social media on our posts around the 26th of January. It was really bad, was really hurtful. So I didn't engage in that either. Fortunately, we've got team members that did. I was about to ask, how are you guys managing that? Because you need to keep your cups full so you can continue to pour from them and stuff like that just eats away at you. And, you know, you and I could sit down and talk about how, you know, obviously hurt people hurt people and not kind people make comments like that online. I mean, I don't think any one of us in this conversation right now

would ever comment on anybody's appearance or what they're doing or how they're doing it. We just go, that's absolutely gross. Like, that's just not who we are or the types of people that we are and the types of person that would pass comment like that online. You go, there must be something more going on. But that's such a level of emotional energy that you just don't have when our cause is so much bigger.

So I was about to ask, do you have a team that takes that away and hides that from you so that you don't have to deal with that burden? My team actually goes through my TikTok and removes all the negative comments before I can even get to look at them. That's one great thing. Yeah, we do. And also, you know, with the team too and going back to our three core values, you know about kindness is we also look at ways that we support each other as well but they

really stepped up they always step up our team in terms of trying to decrease the impact of that cultural load and cultural burden and that's another whole module that we teach around when you're talking about attraction and retention in the workplace we talk a lot about what this thing is called cultural load you know that's a really important part of cultural safety in a workplace is knowing what cultural load is and addressing it. So an example of cultural load would be always going to your First Nations staff member and asking them to organise something for NAIDOC week, for example.

They might be the accountant. Completely unrelated. That's an example of what we mean by cultural load. Yes. You know, it's not remunerated, it's just assumed. So something to be aware as an ally, where we always start the journey of allyship well I started in two places one is craving for a connection with the First Nations person and this was at a very young age at a young age being very confused about the

absence of Aboriginal people and culture in everything in my schooling in my community this is back in the 70s and then as I got older realising oh there's more people like me and Also, I feel quite scared about saying or doing the wrong thing. I don't know where to start. And then we've discovered, you know, there's so many more people like this in life. And that's why we make our learning environments free of blame, shame or guilt. And we do focus on the practical, simple things, places you can start. I love it.

I feel like your community is very much a there's no such thing as a silly question community. and that might seem very funny to say but you really do walk the walk in that aspect like I mentioned earlier that you know obviously Auntie Manya I'm friends with you on TikTok and I love seeing your content but I feel like I've seen a shift in the way people ask questions and they're now saying oh actually I've always wondered is this okay for me to say like am I allowed to call you Auntie Manya and you're like of course you are like are you allowed to do this what does that look like? How does this work? And I think that sometimes we actually have to strip it back to

really bare basics and go, well, why do we call you Auntie Manya? How does that work? Like what cultural significance does that have? I'm not Indigenous. Am I allowed to refer to you that way? And I think that it's just broken down in such a beautiful way that it becomes part of our language and it becomes second nature. And I think that that's what, you know, I'm hoping for and I'm assuming you guys are hoping for that it just becomes, oh yeah, of course we know what that means but right now we don't live in that privileged world of knowing and you're extending that privilege to us to teach us and I think that that deserves a lot more respect than it gets because that would be another massive cultural load being asked the same questions over and over

being asked you know when reconciliation happened 50 webinars like my gosh you would have been exhausted and I see why you're the gold standard of why people want to learn from you. But my gosh, you would have been so tired. We're doing a lot and we have a great team and we're expanding that team. So we actually have a whole pathway that people become accredited allies with us. And from that, we also have a select group of people that become accredited facilitators. So we have facilitators in each state and also facilitators doing online. So Aunty and I are pretty much only these days doing keynote speaking and the larger webinars. So we have a really great, sustainable, growing family of people that can do this work.

I adore it. I know I have taken up a lot of your time today and I am very, very grateful for it to be able to share you guys with our community is an absolute privilege. So last question, I promise. But what kinds of resources can we as a community engage you guys in on? We know that you do keynote speaking. We know that you go into organisations. But what else, I guess, what can we engage with you on? Oh, so many ways. And this bold obsession for 10 million more allies. There's so many ways that you can engage with us. So many free resources on our website, which the link will be there. Absolutely, it will be. We've talked about ask any question that is our philosophy

evolved. There's no such thing as a silly question. So jump online. You can ask anything on Ask Aunty or Ask an Ally. And we do a short video response. There's our books. They're in all the formats. There's practical reconciliation, which takes you through those seven steps we talked about. There's Aunty's children's book series, Ask Aunty. There's Aunty's book, Journey into Dreamtime. You can listen to them on Audible or, you know, get the e-book. They're in libraries apparently. You can borrow them for free at libraries as well. As an individual, you can become an accredited ally. That's really cool. I think we've got over 500 accredited allies since we've launched that and that's not just learning about these competencies and you need to demonstrate

the competencies. That's quite a longer, deeper program. Any touch point you have with us, you're also joining a community. So our vision is of thriving communities of allies across Australia. You can jump online and do our Adapted Privilege Walk activity. That's a really important activity to do as allyship is understanding your own privilege. There's a diversity quiz. We have a downloadable calendar with significant dates. We collaborate with Siretta, an incredible Indigenous artist, beautiful artwork on that. So we just love yarning with people, don't we, Aunty Manya?

So please reach out to us. That's amazing. I adore. Now, for our listeners and also for myself even, because I've really had the privilege of meeting you both today and it's been just genuinely really amazing, where can we find you? Like, do you have like TikTok? I've heard that Victoria has TikTok.

No, you know I have TikTok, but Aunty Manya, she's all over that. You have Aunty Manya on TikTok. So where can we find you? Probably the main way is through our website. So evolves with an S on the end, .com.au. Otherwise, we're on LinkedIn. We do a lot on, we have a lot of connections on LinkedIn. Aunty Manya is a leading voice on LinkedIn.

In our organisational structure, they've got his co-director and general manager and Aunty Manya is a talent. Oh, nobody is surprised. No surprise at all. She's the talent. I like that. How does that make you feel, Aunty Manya?

Or are you just like, obviously? Oh, no, but anyway, here I am. I adore it. We can find you literally on any socials, which I love. We'll put obviously a whole heap of resources into the show notes where you can find Carla and Auntie Manya. We're also going to put some links to Supply Nation and the Indigenous Chamber of Commerce. You know, I want to pop in a link to the Ally Prelage. Obviously, you've had over 3000 people sign up to that, but I think it can be way more than that.

And, you know, information on how to become an accredited ally as well. There's just so much of you guys to share. And I'm so grateful that we got the opportunity to have you on the podcast again. It won't be the last time, but unfortunately, we have run out of time today. So, again, really appreciate it. I know that our community gets a lot out of, you know, our yarns on the pod. I love it. It's one of my favourite things. So, thank you.

And I can't wait to cross paths with you again very soon. We say in your honour, go well. You did mention about potentially doubling our pledge through your ally community. So, that's very exciting. Yes. We're going to work on it. We're going to be across it, especially this week. Thank you guys so much.

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