Yarrabah State School dancers

Yarrabah, an hour's drive from Cairns, is an Aboriginal community of approximately 3000 with an enrolment of just over 500 students at Yarrabah State School.

Paul's focus is on developing positive Indigenous images and his students present performances they've created using traditional and contemporary techniques in partnership with local elders

Paul says involving students in creative activity such as singing, dancing and composing is his core business with performance-based outcomes generating rich experiences for students.

"Over the years I've seen so many positive outcomes from the arts that greatly increase a student's sense of self."

Groundbreaking work such as Paul's will soon be shared with school communities across Far North Queensland (FNQ) thanks to a $50,000 investment from Backing Indigenous Arts.

Backing Indigenous Arts is funding arts workshops in Darnley Island, Lockhart River, Aurukun, Kowanyama, Yarrabah, Weipa, Cairns and Thursday Island in partnership with Education Queensland.

The workshops build on Paul's philosophy of using the arts and positive encouragement to engage students with gratifying results.

Cindy Hales, Project Officer (Indigenous HR and the Arts) FNQ region, Department of Education, Training and the Arts says that students in geographically isolated communities will get opportunities to experience the arts and meet artists and arts specialists, opportunities that many urban students and schools take for granted.

"We hope to provide opportunities for students from a range of different places to meet and share their work with others who are just as passionate and talented in the performing and visual arts as they are - this in itself is exciting," Cindy said.

"The long term outcomes will be a new creative collective in true FNQ style with an emerging group of young artists practicing creative entrepreneurship across the arts – dance, drama, media, music and visual arts both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. This is just one of 25 projects announced by Arts Minister Rod Welford in the first round funding ($805,571) of Backing Indigenous Arts' Building Skills and Opportunities, which delivers $3.43 million over four years.

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