SUPPORTING FIRST NATIONS GROWERS
Miranda Tapsell
Award Winning Actor & Skin Food Enthusiast
In the spirit of reconciliation, Colgate-Palmolive acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea, sky and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations Peoples today.
First Nations people have been surviving off, cultivating and nurturing Australia’s native flora for over 60,000 years. However, they’re being underrepresented, and currently make up under 2% of the native foods agricultural sector1&2.
1Food Futures https://www.foodfutures.com.au/stem
2fnbbaa.com.au/about-us
We’ve partnered with leading innovators in botanical extractions, NATIVE EXTRACTS Pty Ltd to eco-consciously, ethically and responsibly source Australian native plants and fruits in collaboration with Indigenous Enterprises.
Find out more about NATIVE EXTRACTS here
Campaign: We, not me
We’re on a journey with First Nations growers. We’d like to help boost the native agriculture industry, and as we connect to our native ingredients, we are building new connections with our traditional owners.
Our growers have over 60,000 years of inherited knowledge, that helps to guide our journey. We hope our grower’s stories empower your choices, as it did for us.
Meet Pat Mamanyjun Torres
Pat Mamanyjun Torres, fondly known as Auntie Pat, is a proud First Nations woman. She is an Elder of the Torres/Drummond family & is a Djugun & Jabirr-Jabirr cultural educator.
Auntie Pat is an active member & advocate of the First Nations agriculture industry. She is a board member on the key industry organisation, the ‘First Nations Bush Foods and Botanical Alliance’ (FNBBAA). She is also a member of the Northern Australian Aboriginal Kakadu Plum Alliance (NAAKPA) & is one of the ‘Five Kungkas’ (a group of 5 First Nations women who are passionate about the native foods industry, the teachings of Aboriginal cultural knowledge systems & ancient cultural practices that involve plants as food & herbal remedies).
Auntie Pat is an active change agent for indigenous futures. She is a committee member for several local Aboriginal community organisations, an environmentalist, a conservationist, she advocates for native title land rights & has also traced the language revival of Yawuru and Djugun languages and managed Elder oral-history programs.
She is a teacher & a mentor empowering indigenous women in the Kimberley. Not only is she helping people connect with country & culture, she is also commercially savvy & is helping the younger generation with skills to build wealth through business.
She is the winner of various awards, including book awards, winner of harmony awards, winner of the Kullari NAIDOC award, 2019 winner of ‘Because of her we can’ Kimberley WA. She also manages emergency relief services including managing an Op-Shop, in addition to running her own business, Mayi Harvests.
Find out more about Auntie Pat and her Mayi Harvests brand
Meet Dan Newchurch
Daniel Newchurch, is a proud Narungga man, living in Port Victoria on South Australia’s York Peninsula.
Dan’s grandfather, Ron, had run the family farm since the 1990’s where he initially started to cultivate native produce. Demand for natives at this time was not great, so Dan’s grandfather transitioned the farm to grow spring onions & parsley, which turned into a profitable family business.
When Dan and his wife Raquel took over the family farm, in 2018, he decided to transition the farm back to natives. The results speak for themselves. The land is healthy, the plant life & biodiversity is thriving & animal species are beginning to return to the environment.
Dan is super passionate about native foods & the benefits that native plants can have to regenerate the local land & ecology. He sees the benefits of natives & is proud to play a role in reintroducing species into the natural environment.
Dan is regularly hosting local schools for the opportunity to connect with the land, learn about native ingredients & First Nations culture. He has integral connections with the community, promotes knowledge sharing amongst First Nations growers & is inspiring thousands along the way.
Find out more about the Newchurch Family Farm.
‘We, not me’ campaign made in collaboration with:
Cornel Ozies
(Director)
Cornel is a saltwater man belonging to the Djugan and Yawuru nations from the Kimberley region of Western Australia. He also has cultural ties to the Jabirr Jabirr and Gooniyandi nations as well.
Cornel was born and raised in the small town of Broome, here he was taught his cultural history from his great grandmother and his grandparents from both sides of the family. He spent his weekends growing up out in the bush with his grandparents who would take his family fishing, hunting and give them the knowledge to live off the land. Cornel is a filmmaker who is driven to tell stories that build connections with indigenous and mainstream Australia.
Cornel has worked on a variety of projects which includes an Indigenous cooking series Kriol Kitchen for NITV, a comedy show Woollo for ABC, camera attachments on two feature films The Sapphires and The Great Gatsby, Director attachment on the marvel feature film Thor: Ragnarok, a Documentary about the Black Panther movement in Australia and Move It Mob Style an Indigenous Hip Hop dance and health program for NITV and ABC. His recent Doco Our Law about an indigenous run police station, premiered at the Sydney Film Festival and now is currently streaming on Netflix..
Find out more about Cornel Ozies
Miranda Tapsell
(Award Winning Actor & Skin Food Enthusiast)
Miranda Tapsell was born in Darwin and her people are the Larrakia and Tiwi. She grew up in Kakadu National Park and began performing at the age of seven. At 16, she won the Bell Shakespeare Company regional performance scholarship. After finishing school, she was accepted to study at NIDA full-time, and since graduating has built a stellar career on stage, screen and television.