Six communities from the Martu region of Western Australia attended this year’s carnival, with the major annual event providing a yearly opportunity for communities to come together, compete in sports and celebrate Martu culture during the school holiday period.

After a hugely successful carnival in Punmu last year, the 2024 festival was held in Parnngurr, a small community 370km or just over six-hours of travel time inland from Newman.

Over the course of the five-day carnival, football and softball matches ran during the day before the communities came together to celebrate and dance in the evenings with Desert Wave Records organising a rotation of Martu bands to perform on-stage.

Eagles Port Hedland Youth Engagement Coordinator Claudia Bailey travelled over 10 hours to attend her second Martu Youth Festival with the Club and emphasised the festival’s growing impact year-on-year.

“It is important that the West Coast Eagles support this festival to continue providing football engagements and AFL pathway opportunities to youth living in remote communities,” she said.

“This year was quite special as we organised an all Wanti (female) game of football to be played at the Martu Youth Festival with females from ages 10-to-40 coming together to play a competitive game of footy.

“It’s important for Martu youth to see females playing AFL not only on television but in their own communities as well, so it was pretty awesome that we were able to make this happen again as it’s been a few years since an all-female match has been played.

“Martu elders mentioned after the game that they hope the Wanti games will continue and grow every year at the festival. It is an exciting feeling to be able to support the growth of women's football in very remote areas of Western Australia.”

The West Coast Eagles were joined by our official partners in ECU, who alongside other stakeholders from Perth and the Pilbara supported festival organisers Ngurra Kujungka in facilitating the daily matches, organising food and water for the attending communities and engaging with local youth.

ECU Laboratory Technician and Tutor Corey Wilson joined Bailey in Parnngurr and was thrilled with the opportunity brought through the connection with the West Coast Eagles.

“It was my first time attending the Martu Youth Festival and it was incredibly eye-opening but rewarding at the same time. Getting to see the joy not just on the kids’ faces when you rock up with bags of West Coast footies but also the players themselves; all of them were so welcoming and inviting throughout the week,” Wilson said.

“It was really nice to have a different connection with the West Coast Eagles outside of the current programs we run together; this experience gives me the ability to inform some of my students of where these sorts of programs can lead you to.

The Martu people come from communities all over the region so when they get together through the football or the live music in the evenings, you can tell everyone meant so much to them. The sense of community throughout the festival was something truly special to be part of.

- Corey Wilson

Bailey was thrilled to have an ECU representative assisting throughout the festival and highlighted the important partnerships with regional stakeholders across the Pilbara and beyond.

“It was awesome to have Corey who volunteered his time to travel out to Parnngurr to support the event. I'd love to continue to support this partnership with ECU by involving representatives to be part of our regional programs and demonstrate the work Eagles Community and Game Development staff are doing across WA,” she said.

“The Club has strong ties with stakeholders in the Pilbara through all the work we do across the region and an event like the Martu Youth Festival is an opportunity to spotlight these collaborative efforts.”

“A great example of the ongoing connection we have with key stakeholders in the region is our partnership with Ngurra Kujungka; they’re assisting two Martu players from the festival with travelling down to play in our Naitanui Academy curtain raiser before the Round 21 match on Friday night.”

The West Coast Eagles would like to thank the Martu elders and communities as well as Ngurra Kujungka for allowing the Club to once again be part of this wonderful annual event, in addition to our Youth Engagement Partners in BHP who allow full-time staff to be embedded in the Pilbara region.