Bush medicine stews in a pot over a campfire, while a rescue dog wanders the grounds.
Welcome to one of Australia’s most unique aged care centres, which has finally opened its doors in north-east Arnhem Land, more than 20 years since Yolŋu elders began fighting for its creation.
The Yutjuwala Djwarr centre in Nhulunbuy was a vision of the Yolŋu to prevent their ageing family members being forced to travel hundreds of kilometres to cities like Darwin for end-of-life care.
Yutjuwala Djwarr translates roughly to “Little Heaven”.
Centre cultural advisor Robyn Munuŋgurr said it’s a place of harmony and comfort, a home, where clients can spend their final time on earth before heading to what she described as “Big Heaven”.
“We want our Yolŋu clients to come back to their country,” Ms Munuŋgurr said.
“They miss their family, they die over there [in Darwin], and their family over here in east Arnhem Land they worry, they say, ‘why did they get taken away?’
“And that’s why we have this building, for our clients to be set up here … so when they pass, they’re here, on this country, Nhulunbuy, where they belong.”
Staff and residents say the centre is a game changer for the remote East Arnhem region, where there’s long been a shortfall of culturally sensitive palliative and aged care services.
Years in the making, staff say the centre’s a testament to Yolŋu and balanda (non-Indigenous people) working together to achieve a vision to make life better for their community.
Service manager Rosie Breen said “every little aspect of this facility” – from its design to the Gumatj timber used in the build – had been carefully thought out by the Yolŋu to be culturally appropriate.
“All the plants that you see around us were propagated by the Yolŋu, and most of them are bush medicine, so when they’re big and ready we can use them as bush medicine as well,” she said.
It also has a “sorry business space” and ceremony ground to farewell residents who pass away.
Resident Daisy Gonygulu Burarrwaŋa said, via a translator from Yolŋu Matha, “this place is different” to other care facilities she’d found herself in in the past.
“It looks after you really well, all of us,” she said.
“For food, clothing, housing, you don’t give us a hard time or tell us off, or anything else. I found it’s really good in my life where I’m staying. It’s really good, you look after us men and women.”
While the centre is predominantly for Yolŋu, it does accept balanda members of the Nhulunbuy community – two long-term non-Indigenous residents of the town are currently residing there.
And it’s not solely reserved for humans, either.
Lolly is a rescue dog who was discovered badly malnourished and taken to the local pound.
Now, she’s a resident at Yutjuwala Djwarr, even receiving her own end-of-life care plan from staff.
“We’re trying to make it like home,” Ms Breen said.
“This is their home, as homely as possible as on community. They have fires, they have pets, that’s what we’re trying to do here.”
The centre’s official opening is expected to take place later this year.
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