Daintree Ecolodge, Oprah, Tahlia, And Indigenous Support

We hear from Peter Botsman of the Indigenous Stock Exchange (ISX) that Tahlia Burchill, a young Aboriginal girl from Mossman, may have succeeded in drawing Oprah Winfrey to Far North Queensland.

Tahlia has worked at the Daintree Eco Lodge & Spa for 3 years and is the face of Daintree Essentials – an organic skin care range inspired by the world’s oldest rainforest and ancient wisdom from the World’s oldest Race.

Tahlia is one of 50 local Aboriginals who have been trained and employed at Eco Lodge over the past 13 years.

The Tahlia-Oprah Story

Tahlia Burchill, 16, was one of three Kuku Yalanji women interviewed in late November for a segment of Winfrey’s show Beauty Around the World.

Oprah was reportedly ‘blown away by Tahlia’ and is now considering coming here herself to film a more in-depth segment about Tahlia’s rainforest Aboriginal tribe, their culture, inner beauty and spirituality.

When Tahlia heard this last Friday, she said meeting Oprah would be

“absolutely awesome… I’m up for it..

I guess she’s just such a role model in so many ways, she’s such a powerful person.”

Tahlia Also A Role Model

Tahlia is an amazing teenager says Terry Maloney, who with wife Cathy, together run the Eco Lodge. Tahlia excels in just about everything she puts her mind to. She is:

• Captain of Mossman State High
• Chair of the Leukaemia Foundation Mossman district youth committee
• Flautist in school bands
• Cheerleader
• Representative athlete
• Exhibiting artist
• Talented contemporary dancer
• Last year’s winner of the FNQ Zone School Constitutional Convention with her oratory on the need for more indigenous leaders

The Eco Lodge, which employs Kuku Yalanji people on its staff and incorporates indigenous knowledge into its spa treatments, art classes and interpretive walks, formed the backdrop for much of the Winfrey show’s day-long shoot.

Also featured on the segment were Tahlia’s “aunty” Janice Walker, a grandmother and Kuku Yalanji elder, and Merindi Brisco, Janice’s niece and soul-singing member of the Briscoe Sisters.

The Daintree Eco Lodge – A Social Business

Peter describes the Eco Lodge as a ‘social business’ dedicated to supporting Indigenous people. Not encumbered by government bureaucracy, proprietors Terry and Cathy Maloney and their inspirational daughters have just got to work in concert with the Mossman Kuku Yalanji people. And what great things they have achieved!

Peter would like to see more organisations that are in business to do good in Australia. He believes social businesses can achieve things that governments and philanthropies – no matter how well intentioned – cannot.

We, the general public, should to support these businesses and should be telling governments that they need to be diverting relatively small sums to support the social good dimensions of social business.

Each dollar spent in this way has a ten fold multiplier and represents a major advance on the creation of more and more bureaucracy which has hampered all our efforts in Australian Aboriginal affairs and continues to be the case in Canberra.

A good Queensland holiday destination?