Dr Caroline Hughes (Ngunnawal) AM

Dr Caroline Hughes AM is a proud Ngunnawal woman and Executive Director, Collections Services Group at AIATSIS. She has made significant contributions to the field of education and community development throughout her career, which spans over 30 years.

Under Caroline’s leadership she established long standing respectful partnerships that were formed with culture at the foremost of all.

Caroline empowers others to achieve their dreams through the power of education and employment. As practitioner, manager and a leader of vocational education, community development and client support services she ensured that cultural heritage has been the essence of all. Caroline has led the design and delivery of cultural programs that have strengthened the cultural capability of individuals and teams across organisations - within government and private sectors.

A vision of Caroline’s was to empower her Ngunnawal community to come together in a spirit of healing to raise awareness and knowledge by working together with a common goal that inspires a focus on language revistalisation. She knew that by creating culturally safe spaces for discussions through sharing and listening to the stories of Elders, listening to the stories of the many families provided a safe haven for sharing critical knowledges of language. Having grown up with a mixture of Ngunnawal and Australian English she was interested in bringing community together to engage with linguists in reawakening their traditional language. This work has become pivotal for Ngunnawal cultural business across all facets of their traditional custodial rights such as caring for country, education, justice, housing, employment, socio economic opportunities and all facets of health.