RA's RAP
Our Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP)
For an organisation whose core business is reconciliation, led and run by Indigenous and non-Indigenous people working side by side, the journey towards developing our RAP has been especially important. It has been both challenging and invigorating and it would be fair to say that in a number of important ways, the RAP process has enhanced the organisation.
In practical terms, the process of developing our RAP has involved the following:
- An all-staff session to gauge staff understanding of and interest in developing a RAP.
- The identification by RA’s Management Group of 3 staff members (one from each team) to drive the process as our RAP Working Group.
- Separate meetings of Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff to identify key issues.
- Separate meetings of each team to brainstorm.
- Development of a draft RAP by the Working Group.
- An intensive all-staff discussion during our annual two day planning retreat.
- An extensive period of discussion and redrafting involving Management Group and the Working Group.
- Consideration of the final draft by all staff and external stakeholders, including other RAP organisations, and respected members of RA’s network of Indigenous and non-Indigenous contacts.
- Detailed feedback by key external people, including ACT Traditional Owner Matilda House, Professor Simon Longstaff from the St James Ethic Centre, Jason Orchard from the Australian Tax Office and Karen Mundine from CPR. This feedback was especially important because we were mindful that RA should not register its own RAP without running it past people with a knowledge of the programme and the reconciliation environment more broadly.
- Consideration and clearance by RA’s Board of Directors.
The development of this RAP has encouraged Reconciliation Australia to start a new conversation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff, to take a closer look at how we work together and how we feel about each other. It has generated greater honesty and uncovered patterns in our communication that have been a barrier to understanding and trusting each other as we wish to. In this way, it has given us first hand experience of the challenges faced by the Australian nation and the fundamental importance of honest conversation and the ongoing development of respectful relationships.
The nature and form of this relationship-building conversation is not prescribed but the themes of what we have discussed so far and the various contexts in which the conversation will continue are to be found throughout our RAP, including our approach to reporting which will describe this fundamental aspect of our journey.
We have intentionally focused on short term actions and targets for this first year of our RAP. The development of our RAP has encouraged us to look at ourselves differently and established new frameworks for how we operate - particularly internal operations and relationships. These actions and targets will lay the foundations for longer term actions and targets to be identified in future versions of our RAP.
Download Reconciliation Australia's RAP
