My Yuendumu Story

Yuendumu is an Aboriginal Community in Central Australia. Since Frank and Wendy Baarda arrived at Yuendumu Native Reserve, at the end of the 'Welfare Era', in 1973, they have witnessed enormous changes in both Aboriginal lifestyle and in the institutional management of their community.

This story tells of those changes. It also tells of how the Warlpiri people of Yuendumu have retained their unique worldview, their language, identity, dignity, and sense of humour.

Frank Baarda was born in 1943 in Holland. He spent his primary school years in Argentina. When he was twelve years old his family returned to the Netherlands and after two years emigrated to Australia. He spent most of his teenage years in Moe, Victoria. He met his wife at the University of Melbourne where he studied geology. He worked as a field geologist in Australia during the 1960s nickel boom, then in Canada and the Canadian Arctic as a well-site geologist. They returned to Australia by road to Panama and then by ship across the Pacific. In 1973, after two years in Darwin, Frank and his family arrived at their predestined Yuendumu. The cultural, geographic and linguistically diverse background to Frank's life has given him a distinctive perspective on and appreciation of Yuendumu and its people.