Welcoming Our Newest Member – Maliyangaa Ngurra Cultural Centre
10-08-2026
ACHAA extends a warm welcome to our newest core member Maliyangaa Ngurra Languages, Arts & Cultural Centre on Wayilwan Country.
Located in Quambone beside the significant marshlands on Wayilwan/Weilwan Ngurambaa (Country), these marshlands have been a meeting place for the Wayilwan/Weilwan, Wiradjuri, Ngemba, Ngiyampaa, Gamilaraay and Yuwaalaraay people for countless generations.
The cultural centre grew from Wayilwan/Weilwan families gathering on Wayilwan/Weilwan Country to maintain and renew cultural practices with Aboriginal company Milan Dhiiyaan since 2014. Members of the cultural centre have been participating in cultural connection activities in Wayilwan/Weilwan Country over a long period of time. Significantly, in 2016 they organised the first Aboriginal Corroboree held within the Coonamble town boundaries since colonisation, involving 40 local children & adults dancing and around 200 local Aboriginal community members at the event.
Since then, these families have received ongoing support, with mentorship for their youth and families as well as regular cultural events where they can participate in dance and ceremony. This work grew to include cultural camps held on Country at the marshes and now has culminated in the creation of Maliyangaa Ngurra Languages Centre.
Staying true to the history of the marshes as a gathering place of many peoples, the centre continues to lead in keeping alive the languages of their peoples, including speaking and singing the Wayilwan/Weilwan, Wiradjuri, Ngemba, Ngiyampaa, Gamilaraay & Yuwaalaraay languages. They practice ceremony, dance and cultural practices associated with these peoples.
The centre believes in strengthening connection to Country, community, culture and improved social and emotional wellbeing through understanding our interconnectedness as mob. “Through sharing and renewing our songlines that traverse across Countries and across languages that connect us all, we learn of our joint and related responsibilities.” shares Nyimirr (Fleur Magick Dennis), Wiradjuri & Ngemba/Wailwaan songwoman and senior cultural educator at the centre; “Through sharing and renewing our kinship systems we are reminded of our interrelatedness and our co-creating of Ngurambaa (Country) in our togetherness with Country and living culture.”
Although the cultural centre is physically located in Wayilwan/Weilwan Country, the centre’s members also travel throughout neighbouring mob’s Countries for cultural activities with community. For example, members of the cultural centre have been dancing in Ngemba Country, Brewarrina at Baiame’s Ngunnhu Festival most years over the past 11 years.
The centre supports many skilled artists and craftspeople within their community who create in areas of performing arts, visual arts, cultural crafts and handmade tools and weapons. Their leaders have been taught by Elders who have passed on dreaming and songlines, and they continue to share this knowledge through their activities and created objects. The members bring their culture to life daily through cultural wood-crafting, weaving, string-making, dance, song, ceremony, bush food and medicine where their making takes place through ceremony with Country.
Recent activities from the cultural centre have included Winhangadurinya Healing Space at the Australian Museum in Sydney, where they facilitate an Aboriginal meditation workshop based on ancestral knowledge and Aboriginal spirituality. These workshops are available until December 2026.
In 2024 members participated in Ngunhi Wayilwan Dhumbullu – Sharing a Wayilwan Story exhibition commissioned by Powerhouse, Sydney and exhibited at Medellin Museum of Modern Art, Colombia. This photographic and storytelling exhibition focused on the Wayilwan/Wailwan cultural camps at the marshes. These camps will continue annually.
Maliyangaa Ngurra Cultural Centre is a registered not-for-profit Aboriginal community organisation. While entry to the cultural centre is free, cultural tours and activities do attract a cost. Bookings are essential and minimum numbers apply for these activities.
ACHAA is pleased to welcome Maliyangaa Ngurra Languages, Arts & Cultural Centre to our core membership of Living Centres for Living Cultures, demonstrating yet again that Aboriginal cultural infrastructure is essential to our communities.
