Divina D’Anna is a Bard, Nimanburru and Yawuru woman with Kija connections born and raised in the Kimberley. Divina brings a wealth of knowledge, experience and community connections to the Saltwater Country Inc. team.
Divina is passionate about her people feeling empowered to enrich their own lives in their own ways whether it be wanting to be the Prime Minister or just to have a happy and healthy life for themselves and their children.
One of the highlights of her career has been leading the community consultations on the ‘Hear our Voices. Community Consultations for the Development of an Empowerment, Healing and Leadership Program for Aboriginal people in the Kimberley, Western Australia’ the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research and University of Western Australia alongside Pat Dudgeon, Roz Walker, Clair Scrine, Katherine Hams, Kerrie Kelly, Kathleen Cox and Cheryl Dunkley.
Divina, along with Katherine Hams and Cheryl Dunkley then used the report to develop the Kimberley Empowerment, Healing and Leadership Program through Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services and ran a successful pilot program which lead to the National Empowerment Project to run on a national scale.
Her other experiences include over 20 years working with Aboriginal people across the Kimberley specialising in community consultations in the areas of native title, social impacts, self-empowerment and suicide prevention. She is currently employed at Aarnja Limited who are the backbone organisation for Empowered Communities West Kimberley. Prior to this Divina has worked with KRED Enterprises, Kimberley Land Council and KAMS advocating and empowering our mob to deal with all social and economic issues in our communities.