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Mary Pupuli is leading the way for Wadeye children and youth

18 August 2020
Community Wadeye
Children and Schooling
Two Aboriginal young women standing side by side and heads together. The one on the left is wearing a black top and the other an olive coloured top. In the background is a concrete wall.

Graduating Year 12 of high school in Wadeye is not easy but Mary Pupuli and her classmates are the first since 2007 to do just that.

Mary Pupuli from Wadeye in the Northern Territory is the first student since 2007 to graduate Year 12 from a high school in the community. She goes to Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

Most students study away at boarding school and if they return to the community, don’t return to school and finish Year 12.

So Mary and the other students due to graduate later this year are to be congratulated.

In her own words, Mary tells part of her story.

‘I live with 19 other members of my family in a 3 bedroom house at Wadeye. I have just completed my Year 12 studies and will officially graduate on the 29 October 2020.

‘People sometimes ask me how do you pass Year 12 and it is hard. The first thing you must do is go to school every day. I hardly ever missed a day of school and my mother made sure I went all the time. Yes it is hard. The hardest time was from Year 10 to Year 12. I was learning a lot of new words and their meanings and we had to write lots of assessments using these words. Because of this work I can now read and write in both Murrinhpatha my ancestral language and English.

‘My family and friends gave me a lot of support. The school was unbelievable and did everything to help me pass. Us older kids in Year 10 to Year 12 stay in touch on a special Facebook page with our teachers.

‘For a time, I also lived at the Aboriginal Hostel’s Boarding House at Wadeye when I needed a break from home. I am now doing a Vocational Course Certificate 3 in Functional Literacy with the Assistant Teachers at my school and will be studying in Darwin later in the year.

‘I sometimes go to Kungarbarl my family’s country and fish for Barramundi and catch crabs. My favourite AFL team is the Melbourne Demons and my favourite player is Nathan Jones. My younger sister Rosemary will be starting Year 10 next year. I am sure she will pass Year 12 because she is very smart and tries all the time.

‘The other person in the photo with me is my friend Jacinta (Jazz) Dumoo. She is so smart she is going to graduate Year 12 a year early! There are another 5 students studying Year 12 at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and they should all graduate. So that means on the 29 October 2020 there will be 7 of us.’

Mary is working hard to become a teacher and Jacinta wants to go into health services.

Find out more

Under the National Partnership on Northern Territory Remote Aboriginal Investment, the Australian Government has committed approximately $277 million to improve educational outcomes of Aboriginal children in remote and very remote schools in the Northern Territory between 2015 and 2021. Our Lady of the Sacred Heart at Wadeye is one of the schools supported under this partnership.