Mitirlpa Program: Connectivity for Community: Access, Equity, Empowerment
Australia is moving to a digital world where access to services, transactions and opportunities increasingly rely on an individual’s ability to access and engage with digital platforms. While governments, corporates and communities acknowledge the benefits and necessity of this progress, many also recognise a growing divide between mainstream Australia and sections of the community who do not have the infrastructure or ability to engage with a digital world.
Martu living in remote communities do not have equal access to fundamental services such as banking, telecommunication, or government support. Their barriers to access are many. They include geographical remoteness; lack of infrastructure; challenges with language literacy, digital literacy, and process literacy; as well as a lack of access to identification documents.
The culmination of these barriers excludes Martu from mainstream society and from the services, supports and opportunities they are entitled to as Australian citizens.
About the Staying at Home Pilot
The Pilot is an infrastructure and service advocacy solution for Martu. It aims to help Martu in remote communities connect with vital services and undertake basic transactions by providing high quality digital capability and advocacy support thereby dispensing with the need to travel long distances to Newman and beyond.
“You can see a transaction like internet banking and you can order Medicare or other stuff, certificates. You can do anything. Even fines that we didn’t know how to do. Now we have transactions [the Pilot] so we can see what we need and what we want through the internet.”
