Our Cultural Elders Reference Group (CERG)

Henry Dabb

Henry Dabb was born in Subiaco. His father is a Wirlomin man from Esperance, and his mother is a Wanggai/Yamaji woman from Onslo. He grew up in Esperance and went to Agriculture school in Moora, before moving back to Esperance to work on the farms. He is a guitarist and an artist, and a valued member of the Wirlomin Language and Stories Inc. Cultural Elders Reference Group.

Ezzard Flowers

Ezzard Flowers currently works as an Aboriginal Project Officer at Palmerston, an alcohol and drug service.  Ezzard has worked extensively in education, social work, as a participant in Indigenous Healing and extensively around aboriginal affairs.  In 2007 Ezzard received a Western Australian Multicultural Community Service award for preserving the cultural heritage of local Noongars. Ezzard is on the Board of Directors of the Aboriginal Arts Centre Hub of Western Australia.  Ezzard was a 2015 joint recipient of the John Curtin Medal for his attributes of vision, leadership and community service for the important role played in the repatriation of the Herbert Mayer Collection of Carrolup Artwork to Australia in 2013. Ezzard was instrumental in the return of Carrolup artworks from the USA and the Carrolup Artists Exhibition as part of the 2006 Perth International Arts Festival. Ezzard is currently studying a Batchelor of Applied Science (Community Development and Management) and is passionate about aboriginal sustainability. He is a member of the Wirlomin Language and Stories Inc. Cultural Elders Reference Group.

Kim Scott

Kim Scott is an award-winning Noongar author who has worked extensively in Indigenous education and the arts.  Kim began writing for publication shortly after he became a secondary teacher of English.  His first novel, True Country, was published in 1993 and he has had poetry and short stories published in a range of anthologies.  Kim’s second novel, Benang, won the Western Australian Premiers Literary Award 1999, Australia’s premier literary prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award 2000 (Kim was the first Indigenous author to win this Award), and the RAKA Kate Challis Award, one of Australia’s most valuable and prestigious national awards for Indigenous creative artists, in 2001.  His 2010 novel, That Deadman Dance, won the South-east Asia and Pacific Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Miles Franklin Award, the Victorian Premier’s Prize, the NSW Christina Stead Prize and Book of the Year, the South Australian Premier’s Prize, the Australian Literary Society Gold Medal Winner among other accolades. In 2012 it was published in the Northern Hemisphere by Bloomsbury. Kim’s latest novel, Taboo, won the NSW Premier’s Award Book of the Year 2018, the NSW Premier’s Indigenous Writer’s Prize 2018, the University of Queensland Fiction Book Award 2018, and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Indigenous Writing 2019. His work has been translated and published in China, India, Holland and France.

Kim has had a varied and illustrious career in teaching/lecturing including as a secondary school teacher, co-ordinator of the Indigenous Enabling Course and Aboriginal Bridging Course, a Lecturer in the Associate Degree in Contemporary Aboriginal Art (Centre for Aboriginal Studies, Curtin University) and has tutored in Creative Writing.  He was awarded a Centenary Medal, and was 2012 Western Australian of the Year. Kim is currently employed as Professor of Writing in the School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts at Curtin University, and is a member of the Wirlomin Cultural Elders Reference Group.

Roma Winmar/Yibiyung

Roma Winmar/Yibiyung has worked significantly in Indigenous education and the arts where she is continuously working with promoting Noongar language and cultural activities and has translated many children’s songs into Noongar. She has extensive language skills and is presently employed as a Noongar language teacher at Western Australia’s Moorditj College, and as the Elder-in-Residence at Edith Cowan University. She is also is currently on the Board of Sister Kate’s Home Kids Aboriginal Corporation (SKHKAC), and is a member of the Wirlomin Language and Stories Inc. Cultural Elders Reference Group. Roma was awarded the Barry Hayward Outstanding Achievement Aboriginal Individual Award, 2005. She has delivered sessions at conferences on language such as the Connecting with Aboriginal Languages Conference in 2007, in Hawaii; the World Indigenous Suicide Prevention conference in New Zealand in 2016; and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention conference/World Indigenous Suicide Prevention conference in Perth in 2018.

Roma sat on the Department of Education’s Curriculum Council in setting standards and educational expectations for Noongar language taught at secondary and TEE levels. Roma was the language and cultural consultant on the play Yibiyung written by her daughter Dallas Winmar. Roma, under the name of Yibiyung, has worked with the Carrolup School of artists as adults. Biographical cuttings on Yibiyung as an artist in her own right are housed in the National Library of Australia in Canberra as a contemporary Noongar artist. She has a passion for passing on family histories to the next generation through research and storytelling.