Living Remote

If adventure and immersing yourself in our ancient Aboriginal culture excites you, then now is the time for you to experience working in a Catholic community school in the NT...

Aboriginal Culture

Immerse yourself in 30,000 years of culture.

Teaching and living remote will immerse you in the oldest living culture in the world, with a history of over 30,000 years.

It is important that you enter into all aspects of community life. When you open your heart and mind you will experience personal growth and deeper awareness of Aboriginal culture.

Culture runs much deeper than the surface artefacts and processes that are readily evident such as language, art, cooking, music and ceremony. Elements of culture that are less obvious to newcomers include history, values, norms, beliefs, ways of knowing and relating, assumptions about space and time, what being ‘successful’ means and many others.

You will be challenged on your assumptions about space and time, what being ‘successful’ means and so much more.

Bush Tucker - Hunting

Aboriginal people harvest meat and bush foods from the land and have done so for thousands of years. It is common in the bush to see animals being hunted for food. (Kangaroo, buffalo, cattle, bush turkey, geese). Fishing for barramundi, turtles is also common in some communities. As you get to know community members, you may be invited to go bush for hunting and fishing. Some teachers choose not to join in bush trips and this is ok. Ladies may be invited to join the women collecting long neck turtles, weaving bush berries, honey ants. This is one way you can be immersed in their living culture.

Support

Remember: there will be people in your community both Aboriginal and non local who can assist you when you are struggling. Staff well-being is extremely important at St Francis Xavier so we have access to a face to face Catholic Care counsellor weekly as well as an offsite psychologist by phone.

Most importantly we have a Catholic Aboriginal Leadership Team (CALT) whose role includes support of staff especially regarding culture and community living.

Community Facilities

• Shire Office
• General store/Supermarket
• EFTPOS and ATM facilities
• Church
• Police station
• Post Office – with agency banking facilities
• Centrelink office
• Health clinic
• Creche
• Mechanical workshop and fuel outlet
• Next G mobile and wireless internet coverage
• Television and radio coverage
• Swimming pool and sport and recreation area
• Takeaway shop
• Daly River Inn hotel/Pub
• Boat Ramp
• Annual Merrepen Arts and Sports Festival
• All weather airstrip
• Sealed Road from Darwin
• Excellent fishing

Staff gym

Staff, as well as student health, is highly supported and promoted in St Francis Xavier Catholic School.
Our newly-fitted on-site gym is free of charge for all staff members to use at any time, and includes:

• A variety of cardio and weight machines
• Free weights
• Accessories.

Housing-

Staff housing

Housing and utilities are provided to all of our full-time teachers.

All houses include basic furniture, kitchen appliances and utensils, washing machine as well as a flat-screen TV, Satking, Internet and phone bills are not included. (The houses featured in photographs are not necessarily the available housing).