The NSW Aboriginal cultural grants program has confirmed $1.5 million in funding for 85 local Aboriginal organisations across New South Wales, supporting community-led events that keep language, ceremony, and land-based knowledge alive. Delivered through Aboriginal Affairs NSW under the Minns Labor Government, the round is part of the state’s broader Closing the Gap commitment to strong, living Aboriginal cultures.
NSW Aboriginal Cultural Grants Back Storytelling, Dance, and Land Knowledge
The funded projects span a wide range of cultural expression: storytelling gatherings, dance and art practices, and programs designed specifically to strengthen and preserve endangered languages. Rather than funding a single flagship event, the program is deliberately distributed — dozens of smaller, community-controlled initiatives rather than one centralised showcase, which keeps decision-making with the communities themselves.
From Possum Skins to Creation Stories: What’s Being Funded
Individual projects give a sense of the program’s texture. In Port Kembla, on Dharawal Country, the “Strength Through Sharing” initiative gathers Aboriginal women of all ages for workshops in possum-skin work, clapsticks, and shell art, guided by Elders. In the Murray River region, the Wamba Wamba Connecting Community Project is funding cultural gatherings built around direct engagement with Country and Elders. Near the Macquarie Marshes, the group Milan Dhiiyaan is using its grant to preserve the Maliyaangaa Ngurra creation story in both the Wayilwan language and English, ensuring the deep history of the wetlands is passed to future generations rather than lost to time.
Rangers, Rivers, and Traditional Land Management
Not every project centers on ceremony or storytelling. Tamworth Local Aboriginal Land Council is using its grant to bring Ranger teams together for a week-long, on-Country exchange, swapping traditional land-management knowledge across desert, coastal, riverine, and woodland regions. It’s a reminder that cultural preservation and ecological stewardship are, in many Aboriginal frameworks, the same undertaking rather than separate concerns.
Part of a Wider Closing the Gap Commitment
NSW Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Treaty David Harris framed the program as central to Aboriginal communities’ ability to “keep culture strong,” and the funding sits inside the state’s Closing the Gap agreement, specifically the target that Aboriginal cultures and languages remain strong, supported, and flourishing. Recipient Crystal Mahoney, CEO of Barriekneal Housing & Community, described her organisation’s grant as building a bridge between Elders and youth for the Yuwaalaraay people — a phrase that captures the intergenerational aim running through nearly every funded project.
Why This Matters for the Shamanic Community
For Shaman Portal’s global audience of practitioners and seekers, this kind of grant program is a useful counterpoint to how indigenous spiritual and healing knowledge usually reaches Western audiences — filtered through books, retreats, or individual teachers abroad. Here, the funding flows the other direction: into the hands of the Elders and knowledge-holders themselves, on their own Country, for their own communities first. It’s a reminder that the traditions many practitioners draw inspiration from are living, actively maintained cultures with their own funding needs, governance, and priorities — not static source material.
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