OpShop project is empowering First Nations entrepreneurs

James Thornhill
09:00am August 22 2024

Tanya Egerton at the AgriFutures Rural Women's Award night in Canberra. (Supplied)

Tanya Egerton is driven by her belief that entrepreneurship can help bring about positive economic and social change for First Nations people. 

Egerton’s work with the Remote OpShop Project, which helps women in Aboriginal communities to set up their own enterprises selling donated clothing and household goods, has been recognised with her being named winner of this year’s AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award. 

“We give the women the keys to their own opshop – we don’t determine how it runs because they are the experts in their communities,” Egerton tells Wire in an interview.

“They are able to build up the basic business skills that they need and bring young people along on that journey as well - that ultimately leads to the development of future Indigenous business.”

In 2016, Egerton was working as an Indigenous business facilitator in Katherine in the Northern Territory when a group of women approached her about setting up an arts centre, but lacked the funds to get started. 

Following a brainstorming session, the idea for an opshop emerged.

“Because of the extreme lack of access to affordable clothing and household goods in remote areas we put out a call on Facebook asking for boxes of clothing,” Egerton recounts.  

The post went viral, with hundreds of people wanting to donate their pre-loved goods. Within days 700 boxes of clothing had arrived in Katherine. 

“The women were truly astounded by the response,” Egerton says. “They were able to set up their opshop, allowing them to generate the funds to buy all their own arts supplies and formally incorporate their arts centre.” 

Their success inspired Egerton to further develop the idea, and her project has seen 25 opshops start up in isolated communities across the NT and Western Australia. 

They play a valuable role in providing essential items at affordable prices in what are generally high cost, low income areas, while providing the women with hands-on experience of running a business.  

“There’s no lack of entrepreneurial spirit in remote Australia,” Egerton says, adding that she receives weekly calls from women wanting to open their own opshop. 

The opshops are run as social enterprises, with the proceeds allocated to community and cultural projects, such as Elders taking young people out on country to pass on traditional knowledge. 

“Being able to fund these cultural projects in a responsive way is enabling people in a way they haven’t had before,” Egerton says. 

Essential role

The AgriFutures Rural Women’s Award recognises the essential role women play in rural and regional businesses, while aiming to inspire them to further develop their skills. 

The seven state and territory winners all receive a $15,000 grant from Westpac, platinum sponsor of the award. The winner receives an additional $20,000, as well as access to a professional development training course. 

“The nominees embody what it means to be an entrepreneur, and are an inspiration for us all, as they turn their ideas into successful, purpose led businesses,” says Peta Ward, Westpac National General Manager, Regional and Agribusiness. 

This year’s runner up was Grace Larson who, along with her sister Skye, started the Sisterhood Project, a charity which delivers life-saving skills to parents and caregivers across Australia. 
 

Grace Larson. (Supplied)

Larson’s inspiration for the project came from a traumatic experience with her six-week-old daughter.

As a paediatric intensive care nurse, Larson was quick to notice that her baby wasn’t breathing normally and seemed lethargic. She didn’t hesitate to take her to hospital where she was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. 

“What dawned on me in that moment was how much the knowledge and skills that I’d gained through my career helped me make that decision. If it were another person in my situation without the same background it could have been a totally different outcome,” says Larson.

The stakes are particularly high for people in rural or remote Australia who may lack convenient access to healthcare services and have had little opportunity to develop their own skills and awareness. 

The Sisterhood Project aims to address this by delivering life-saving skills to parents and caregivers across rural Australia, including free infant and child first aid, CPR training, and how to identify preventable illness to help decrease the need for rural children to seek specialised services in urban areas.

“Everyone should have access to this knowledge and these skills and shouldn’t be prevented from accessing it because they live in a rural or remote area, or because they don’t have the funds to go on a course,” says Larson, who lives in Mia Mia in rural Victoria. 

Larson plans to use the prize money to further scale up the services the charity offers, including developing an app so more people can access the learning resources they offer. 

See also: Business is blooming for rural women’s champion 

Online applications are now open for the 2025 Award. For more details visit the AgriFutures website. Applications close on October 9. 
 

James Thornhill

James Thornhill was appointed as editor of Westpac Wire in May 2022. Prior to joining the bank, he was a business and financial journalist with more than two decades of experience with international newswires. Most recently, he was a resources correspondent for Bloomberg, covering the mining and energy sectors, and previously reported on a broad range of topics from economics and politics to currency and bond markets. Originally from the UK, he’s had stints working in London, New York and Singapore, but is now happily settled in Sydney.

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