New community store brings benefits to remote Bulman

Out in Bulman, a small speck in the red dirt of the Northern Territory, three hundred kilometres northeast of Katherine, a new community store is taking shape, and Kenny Murray is proudly watching on.

Bulman is Kenny’s mother’s country; born fifty kilometres south in Mianaroo, Kenny walked with his father to Bulman as a young boy and has been here ever since. He has seen the community grow and, as the then chairperson of the Bulman Community Store, realised that a new, bigger store was needed to properly serve the community.

Bulman’s current store, “The Gulin Gulin store”, is like many stores in remote communities, a small, cramped space with room only for a limited range of goods. This forces locals to make an eight hour round trip to Katherine for anything else, an impossible task when the roads are flooded in the wet season.

Constructing a new store has created training and employment opportunities for people from Bulman and the nearby community of Weemol.

Local employment provider, Roper Gulf Regional Council, engaged with the builder early in the process and arranged for 24 local job seekers to complete nationally accredited training. As a result 17 community members have gained employment on the project and a local mentor has been engaged to support the employees.

“We saw an opportunity for locals to get involved in construction jobs at the new store and now when I see them walking to work every morning it feels good to know I’m helping to create jobs in my community,” Kenny said.

Ensuring community concerns were addressed during the planning and construction on the store was also an important priority for Kenny.

“Local people want more fresh, healthy food and other items that aren’t available in the old store,” Kenny said.

“We also made sure the new store wouldn’t be placed on a sacred site, and a senior elder has been giving cultural inductions for new workers, pointing out where all the sacred sites are, such as the nearby grove of pandanus trees. This makes the workers more comfortable as they know where they can and can’t go around the community,” Kenny said.

The new store is due to open in the next few months and Kenny has plans for the old store.

“There are a lot of artists here in Bulman so we are hoping to turn half of the old store into an art centre to showcase their talents, and the other half of the store could be used as storage for equipment that we can’t fit anywhere else,” Kenny said.