Empowering partnerships help build Aboriginal businesses

Goldfields-Esperance Aboriginal business owners are thriving through strong partnerships and connections to industry and government. 

Goldfields-raised Rowena Leslie is one of those – she and her sister own mining and civil contracting company Kai Rho Contracting. They employ 15-20 full-time staff, which doubles during a project. 

Mrs Leslie said it was a very competitive industry and much harder for an Aboriginal-owned, women-led company. But the company had developed strong links with the local community, industry and government.

“We have to try to make connections and experiences from scratch,” she said.

“But you know, we’re here to work and when people get to know us, they like that they’re getting a company that delivers.”

Kai Rho was recently awarded a Regional Economic Development (RED) Grant, through the Goldfields-Esperance Development Commission, to purchase and modify a grader so a second person could be safely seated next to the driver.

This allowed hands-on training so employees could be taught final trim operating, a specialised skill to flatten road surfaces during roadworks to exact specifications.

Mrs Leslie said they also developed a curriculum so operators could show they had the skills. 

“I think it’s about getting quality in your regions and not just hitting our result but actually empowering that community,” she said.

“I think what we really need to concentrate on is the quality of engagement.

“That creates intergenerational results.

“When we have indigenous people work in our company or an Aboriginal person owns a business, I like to see how they take care of their family,” she said.

“I love how that impacts their children, getting good education and opportunities and all those other contributions they make to their community.”

Mrs Leslie is a graduate of the Aboriginal Business Leadership Initiative, a State Government program to empower Aboriginal leaders, business owners and emerging entrepreneurs in the Goldfields-Esperance region. The program helps strengthen leadership, skills and business resilience, and is part of the bigger picture of the impact investing in leadership in regional areas can have. 

Mrs Leslie said her family invested in her education at the Aboriginal-led CAPS Coolgardie school and she now had two degrees from UWA.

She gives back to her community through the Goldfields Aboriginal Business Chamber, Kurrawong Community and CAPS school.

Her daughter has just been awarded an international scholarship to study at an elite US high school and several Goldfields Aboriginal businesses were supporting her trip because they saw the benefits of investing in the next generation. 

“A leading contributor to our success is having good people to walk along with us on this journey,” she said.

Leonora’s Kado Muir is another Goldfields leader who also works closely with community, government and industry – links which have helped him indulge in his passion for technology to bring ancient Aboriginal language and practices to life. 

Mr Muir is known for his significant work in native title claims and engagement with mining and government, and he runs various businesses.

But computer programming was his first love, after his parents bought him a computer in the 1980s. 

Fast-forward to now and he was an instant adopter of AI to build apps to bring his heritage to people across the world.

“We’re recording and preserving a practically extinct original language, so that’s one thing,” he said.

“We’re taking dreamtime stories and converting them into apps to make them available to everyone, and then building the infrastructure around it for teachers and schools to be able to take that app and use it in their classroom with confidence.”

He had also developed an Aboriginal awareness cultural training app using his voice with AI. 

He acknowledged the support from mining companies, contractors and the Shire of Leonora to help build the technology through his company, the Dilji Corporation.

“If some of the traditional industry helps resource the innovation that I’m running, what we’re creating is a capacity for other people to convert some of the traditional industry from the region into these innovation type enterprises,” Mr Muir said.

Technology was changing the way people could access information.

“Well look at it this way. I’m currently 300 kilometres out in the bush from my home. 

“I’m effectively running an international technology company sitting by a campfire watching the moon,” he said. “That’s possible for everyone.”