Each year, Highways and Byways provides small grants to community organisations addressing disadvantage and exclusion, especially in rural and regional Australia.
This year’s Small Grants Program theme is ‘Community Connections in An Ancient Land‘. This theme recognises that Australia is a vast and ancient land, home to the longest continuing culture on earth. It is a land that, in recent years, has been challenged by drought, floods and bushfires, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a cost-of-living crisis, which has left many communities struggling.
We were keen to support projects that bring communities together to forge social bonds and to collaborate to address social issues, such as isolation and loneliness. We wanted to support people and groups to form new partnerships, where they could develop new skills and obtain new knowledge that would allow them to manage their land and environs sustainably into the future. We wanted to encourage and support the emergence of new leaders. We also wanted to recognise the innate wisdom and unique cultural identity of our First Nation’s peoples that have been an integral part of our land for 65,000 years.
Congratulations to the thirty-three projects that are receiving small grants from Highways and Byways this year. These initiatives span the nation, and showcase a diversity of activities dedicated to protecting and celebrating Indigenous culture, while caring for our land, waters, and country, along with the communities that call them home.
For a list of our grants, click here: 2024 grants list.
For a more comprehensive overview of each grant project click here: 2024 Small Grants.
Our grants would not be possible without the support of our donors – and we thank them for their continued generosity.
Image c/- Desert Support Services. Kiwirrkurra Indigenous Rangers purchased a new drone to help with their management of the Kiwirrkurra Indigenous Protected Area in central Australia. The drone captured the Rangers monitoring burning (2022 small grant recipient)