Soapy Bore community clean-up!

Earlier this year the Soapy Bore community, which is in the Utopia Homelands region of Central Australia participated in a Clean-Up Australia Day event with the help of the Urapuntja Aboriginal Corporation, the Barkly Shire Council, the teams at My Pathway and the Arid Land Environment Centre, as well as Contact Inc.

The community was awoken to the sounds of the ‘Saltwater Band’ blasting from the Contact Children’s Mobile troop carrier as Robyn and Olivia from the Contact team handed out gloves and rubbish bags, and encouraged everyone to get involved in cleaning up their community.

According to resident Susan Chalmers, everyone got behind the clean-up because they knew that it would be a good way to help make their community safer and healthier.

“It makes the community look better and it’s good for the health of our families and communities," said Susan.

"It's good to have a clean community for the kids,” explained another local Rhonda Jones.

The real stars of the day were the children from the Soapy Bore who were up early to lend a helping hand to any family and friends if they needed it.

After the big clean-up activities, everyone was treated to a pancake breakfast and the community members who had put in that extra effort were acknowledged with special roo tail awards.

The Soapy Bore community are determined to keep their outstation clean and another resident Robert Jones would like to see this type of activity become something that locals do regularly.

"It made the community clean and the houses better. It's good to keep cleaning to keep the rubbish down and for all the communities to keep their country clean,” said Robert.