Background:

This health and wellbeing promotion project was centered on the remote Indigenous community of Rockhole, which has a population of 100-120 people and is situated 30 km from Katherine, Northern Territory. This was a cooperative project involving the Wurli-Wurlinjang Health Service (WWHS), Katherine and the Indigenous Hip Hop Projects (IHHP), Victoria.

Methods:

Community members decided that bringing in IHHP staff to produce a music video would be a sustainable and creative way to create a music video containing relevant and culturally appropriate messages that would engage and empower the community. The music video used a fusion of stories, music, dance, health and cultural activities. The key themes that the community chose were lifestyle choices such as “no gambling, no fighting, no smoking, no drinking” as well as going camping, eating healthy food, going to school and passing down cultural knowledge.

Results/Discussions:

 We achieved a community participation rate of 93 people (age range 1 month-82 years). As of May 2014, YouTube data shows that >32,000 devices have been used to watch the music video. Evaluation reported a positive focus on health awareness and healthy choices, increasing individual skills and confidence, building capacity, cultural pride and a sense of community strength. ‘Rockhole’ won National awards, it gained explosive media coverage including an ABC documentary and it attracted social media sharing through YouTube. It was performed live by community members in two festivals in 2013. There have been many positive unintended outcomes from this project including its use by universities and health departments as an example of a successful health promotion project, and there have been longer term outcomes for the community a year on.

Conclusions/implications:

This project contributes to an emerging evidence to support the effectiveness of partnerships between health, art and Indigenous communities to carry healthy lifestyle messages to remote communities.