Healing Places

The Healing Places grant round is the first of its kind for Spinifex Foundation SA. It seeks to support Aboriginal communities in South Australia to restore, care for, and honour their community-managed cemeteries.

The Healing Places initiative is intended to provide resourcing and support to enable community-led projects that uphold dignity, strengthen cultural practice, and support ongoing healing cemeteries.

These sacred places are more than burial grounds. They are:

  • Resting places for ancestors
  • Spaces of grieving, remembrance, and cultural continuity
  • Sites of spiritual connection, ceremony, and storytelling.

Why This Matters

Cemeteries are cultural landscapes that hold profound meaning for Aboriginal families and communities. Yet many are maintained without formal funding or support, and are:

  • Lacking shade, shelter, or safe walking paths
  • Without culturally respectful signage or memorials
  • Overgrown, unfenced, or at risk of damage
  • Disconnected from sustainable maintenance programs
  • Sites of deep intergenerational grief, including histories of the Stolen Generations and
  • cultural disconnection.

This grant round aims to restore dignity, function, and cultural care, empowering communities to lead this work in culturally grounded ways.

Successful projects are to be community-designed and led, and proposals may focus on one or more of the following areas:

Infrastructure

  • Culturally designed shade structures, seating, and shelter for Elders and families
  • Pathways or wheelchair accessible areas for safety and inclusion
  • Entryway signage in language and English acknowledging cultural significance
  • Fencing to protect and delineate sacred areas

Cultural Practice & Ceremony

  • Support for cultural leadership and community Elders to guide the vision for the site
  • Ceremonial clean-ups and reawakening of sites through song, dance, and story
  • Cultural healing programs run on-site (eg. grief circles, memorials, smoking ceremonies)
  • Engaging young people in cultural site care and knowledge transfer

Maintenance & Sustainability

  • Establishment of community maintenance teams or partnerships with local Aboriginal organisations or councils
  • Tools, materials and training for ongoing upkeep
  • Funding for signage or educational materials to prevent misuse or disrespect

Storykeeping

  • Capturing the history and stories of the site and those buried there
  • Digital or physical memorials that connect community members to lost family or cultural leaders
  • Language signage or QR codes that share stories and historical context

Funding

There are up to 10 grants available to the value of $15,000 per community cemetery.

Eligibility

Aboriginal communities or incorporated organisations responsible for or closely connected to a community-managed cemetery. If you know of any Aboriginal community-managed cemeteries in South Australia which would benefit from a Healing Places grant, please email info@spinifexfoundationsa.com.au for more information.
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