Dear Friend of the Irati Wanti campaign,
Emily Munyungka Austin, Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, and Karina Lester, granddaughter of Eileen Kampakuta Brown, invite you to attend a special event:
Talking Straight Out: Images and insights from the campaign that stopped South Australia from becoming a nuclear waste dump.
The Lyrics Room, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide, Kaurna Land
Thursday 15 October, 2015
Doors open at 5pm, Inma, stories and speakers from 6pm
October 15, 2015 marks 62 years since the first atomic bomb test at Emu Junction, South Australia. The Kungka Tjuta remember, “All of us were living when the Government used the country for the bomb. Everybody got sick… They thought they knew what they were doing then…
In February 1998 the federal government announced its plan to build a national radioactive waste dump in the South Australian desert. In March a council of senior Aboriginal women from Coober Pedy, the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, made an announcement of their own. “We say no radioactive waste dump in our ngura—in our country.”
For six years the women travelled the country, talking straight out. They called their campaign Irati Wanti. “We all say enough is enough. Irati wanti—the poison leave it.”
They explained, they demanded, they marched and sang. They told of extraordinary personal histories. They worked with greenies and wrote passionate letters to politicians.
They won.
They published a book to share these stories with you. Now we are sharing them again.
There is talk again about radioactive waste dumps in South Australia. When word got to Coober Pedy, women again got together to talk, “We know the stories from the bomb. We know the history. We know the country. And it is crying for us. We will talk over and over and we won’t stop. For the kids and the land and for all the Kungkas that aren’t here. Everyone has to say no. Irati Wanti—the poison leave it”.
We hope that you can join us.
Please RSVP by emailing: iratiwanti@gmail.com or at the Facebook event here.