Ponki Mediation training pays dividends

Yesterday, the Ponki (Tiwi) mediators who participated in the CJC/NAAJA mediation workshop in Nguiu on Bathurst Is last November (graduation picture below) completed their first (multi-sessional) Correctional Centre Mediation Conferencing Program (program) that involved an offender who has spent the last 19 years behind bars for killing his wife and the family of the deceased.

Several mediation sessions since early this year months took place on Tiwi by the Ponki skin group forum mediators who helped the community to face the reality of the prisoner returning to the island and build understanding, forgiveness and peace. The mediation incorporated strict compliance to appropriate Tiwi skin group relationships by identification, consulting elders hence establishing trust for the process.

The meditations culminated last month with a mediation team led by the Ponki mediators who brought together both victim and offender’s key family members to fly over to Darwin to sit and share their story under the big mango tree at Berrimah prison.

The logistics were supported by support staff on Nguiu; Mediators mediators from Darwin with program partners Larrakia Nation to arrange the transport logistics and Aboriginal Liaison Officer staff from Corrections who prepared the mediation space under a large mango tree in the horticultural area at Berrimah.

Needless to say, the personal content of the mediation remains confidential - however there was a powerful moment at the conclusion of the mediation where all the families and the prisoner held hands in a circle with a prayer for forgiveness and strength. The families all returned to Tiwi Is to share the one story that they agreed on.

The Ponki mediators have indicated that they will all be at the airport (terminal photo on the left)to greet and show support the offender back on the Island.

On a final note - I travelled  1500km south of Darwin to the 'red centre' to be part of a Nationally Accredited mediation program being delivered in Alice Springs - have a look at the media release.  

I am confident that the participants will be soon be delivering mediations - in areas where the hand of contemporary legal system just can't reach - and give it a good scratch.


"We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us."
Martin Luther King, Jr.