In outback Australia you can expect to meet all sorts of wildlife – emus, dingos, camels, spiders and snakes of all sorts, but look who popped in while we visited our trainer’s accommodation in historic Hermannsburg (Ntaria) NT!
‘Miss Piggy’ comes right to the door of our trainer Philip’s accommodation grunting something we think means ‘hey, what’s good to eat around here?’
The much loved Miss Piggy is the Tjuwanpa Resource Centre’s Pig. This is a separate area from Hermannsburg and was set up to service the outstations with about 200 people living in little communities around the main townships.
The school kids love playing with Miss Piggy who cruises around the town looking for snacks.
STEPS Trainer Philip Allnutt is currently working at Tjuwanpa teaching driver’s licence training to our clients in the region.
About Ntaria
Hermannburg is also known as Ntaria in western Aranda language and is an Aboriginal community in Ljirapinta Ward in the Northern Territory of Australia, 125km southwest of Alice Springs.
The area was established as an Aboriginal mission in 1877 by two Lutheran missionaries of the Hermannsburg Mission from Germany, who had travelled from Bethany in the Barossa Valley in South Australia.
STEPS celebrates the rich history of vernacular literacy in the community which had early beginnings. The recent ‘Western Arrarnta Picture Dictionary’ published in 2006 is just one publication in a long tradition of reading and writing in the local Aboriginal language.
