Nurturing allyship one ally at a time

The referendum left many allies of Indigenous Australians disappointed and concerned for First Nations people, regardless of whether they themselves had voted for or against an Indigenous Voice to Parliament. With many Indigenous Yes campaigners going into a period of grief and reflection, many allies followed suit.

Now that a month has passed, the question allies need to ask themselves now is, what next?

Voting in a referendum is easy. Maintaining and growing allyship in the weeks, months and years ahead will take more effort. It’s this energy that Indigenous organisations have been working to nurture since the referendum.

In the days immediately after the vote, organisations from the Go Foundation to the Welcome to Country online store sent business-as-usual communications to their subscriber lists, not mentioning the referendum’s defeat.

However more recently, organisations have begun to invite allies to focus on the future. A recent email from Charlene Davison, CEO of the GO Foundation, for example, invited subscribers to “continue to learn and understand how you can support First Nations peoples and communities” and provided a list of ways to do that. Of course the Indigenous Law Foundation is continuing its work, recently inviting allies to contribute reflections on the referendum and ideas to chart a path forward.

Clearly, all the work can’t be done by Indigenous organisations. With a growing awareness in Australian society of the concept of allyship, now is the time for those who voted Yes to find ways that they can commit their time or other resources to support First Nations Australians. Aside from donations to and engagement with Indigenous efforts, helping to promote active allyship and encourage it in other non-Indigenous contacts could be a useful approach.

One organisation that’s focused on this is Barayamal, our Indigenous business incubator, which has published a draft Allyship Toolkit, and a Mindset Scorecard that can help non-Indigenous allies in business assess how “Western” is the approach they take to their work. Again, this is a case of a First Nations organisation taking the lead. The question is, will allies encourage their own contacts to follow it?

We’re yet to see allies really strongly promoting allyship more broadly within their own communities, but given the very real disappointment that many Yes-voters felt on October 14th, now might be the time for them to make that a part of their allyship practice.