The Yottu Yindi Foundation plans to build a new school at the Karma Festival site

Standing on an empty platform at the Karma Festival site, Murphy Yunuping spreads her arms wide enough – wide enough to take full measure of her bold, precious and nostalgic new vision.

Vision is a new school, the resumption of an old school, his old school, Tubuma College.

“My thinking and plans are to transform the college into a Yiddish [didgeridoo] The design, a giant idiot, with the students in it, ”the project leader said, moving through the dusty plains.

Whether or not it will be as fruitful as Mr Yunping’s dream, the plan to build a high school on the Kulkula site has laid some foundations.

With karma canceled in 2020 due to Covid 19, Mr Yunping said the donation was made to the Yodhu Yindi Foundation (YOF), the company behind the festival.

Mr. Yunping, Tupuma College will be an independent bilingual school that will teach children – or Jamarkuli – in English and their first language, Yolku Mata.

“What we are doing is bringing Dharmaguli’s knowledge into their second language so they can easily climb their second language without slipping,” he said.

The original Tubuma College opened in Kulkula – today the site of Karma – in 1972.

The residential college was hailed as a successful model for teaching young northern students, mainly tribal children, how to be in both Yolong and Palanda. [non-Indigenous] Worlds before the abrupt closure in 1979.

The college is ready to go on the path of independence

Tupuma College Project N.D. Has advanced to high-level discussions with the government to help advance the path to independence.

But YYF chief executive Denise Botan said the school would not be bound by the government and would implement its own curriculum.

“Freedom is important,” Ms Bowden said.

“It allows us to move according to the bandwidth and flow of the local community.

“We clearly want the local community to be a part of the design and develop the curriculum and have a very strong yolk presence.”

In a statement, the ND government acknowledged that “bilingual education is an example of how schools can improve engagement” but did not go so far as to make resources for the program.

The ND government dropped bilingual education from its own school curriculum in 2008.

The Dubama project will face challenges and costs

Going their own way is not easy. Klaus Helms, chief executive of the Kumatz Corporation, said building a new school in a vacant lot of land in one of the most remote parts of Australia would have its challenges and costs.

“The cost of running this again in 2021 is very different than it was in 1974,” Mr Helms said.

He also cited potential disruptions in power and water supply in reviving the project.

The idea of ​​building a high school in Kulkula is in line with YYF’s simultaneous plan to open an independent kindergarten and kindergarten in the Cow Peninsula community of Kunyangara, which may also integrate plans to build a second facility.

However, Murphy Yunping, the lead architect of the idea, was optimistic that not only would it happen, but that the Karma Festival would happen just in time for 2021.