Vocational Service Award – 2009/2010

The Rotary Club of Melbourne established the Vocational Service Award in 1964.  It is presented annually to a person who has achieved a high level of excellence in their vocation and through such vocation has rendered outstanding service to the community.

The 2009/2010 Rotary Club of Melbourne Vocational Service Award recognises the distinguished Biological Anthropologist Dr Neville Graeme White AM.

Dr White’s story begins in the early 1970s when he travelled to the remote Arnhem Land homeland community of Donydji to undertake research for his PhD.  Through his study he became convinced that traditional indigenous communities were not being given the opportunities for a future in the Australia of this century while retaining their traditional ties to the land, language and culture.

Over the past thirty-five years Neville White has returned each year to the Donydji Community.

He has learnt their language and developed a profound and detailed understanding of the people, their culture, their history and all the many problems they faced.  He has become their much loved and trusted friend.

Dr White has used his Vocational skills to assist the Donydji people in understanding health and hygiene and in the organisation of a school program.  Also he has worked to convince governments, both the Federal and Northern Territory, to recognize the significant role that people living in remote communities can have in the future of this country.  

He has demonstrated, through his research, that aboriginal people living in homeland communities under the protection of their kin are generally healthier and more receptive to learning than those who are forced to live away from their traditional homelands in the often dysfunctional camps that exist on the outskirts of larger communities.

His objective has been to develop a model of self sustainability, not only for the Donydji community, but for the remote homelands of all the Yolngu people of North East Arnhem Land.

Neville White is an exemplar of the ideal of Service above Self and joins a distinguished body of men and women who have been previous recipients of this award.

Neville expressed his gratitude to the Rotary Club of Melbourne and the philanthropic trusts for their support over the past five years, including a three bedroom single men’s accommodation block built by his team of Vietnam Veterans who join him each year in training the young-men of the community in a range of trade skills.

Neville introduced us to Joanne Yindiri and Sonia Gurrpalan from Donydji, both in Melbourne in a program sponsored by Latrobe University that will see them as fully qualified teachers.

It was clear to us all that Neville White is a man who fitted perfectly Sam Keen’s definition of a person with a true sense of vocation.