[email protected]

Our Team

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The Nganya team strives to motivate leaders and organisations to establish significant and meaningful connections with First Nations communities, aiming to deliver sustainable and equitable outcomes.

We are a team of First Nations and non-First Nations people who value people, communities, and connection. We always listen to and learn from others’ lived experiences and are committed to incorporating people’s voices into all that we do at Nganya.

Our collaborations with our clients are not transactional; what we do is transformational. We support and stretch our clients to design and build momentum, ensuring that our collaborative efforts have a lasting impact beyond our time together.

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Contact us

Dixie Crawford

Founder and Consultant

Sarah Ciftci

Researcher and Consultant

Kym Bina

Administrator

Vanessa Schimizzi

Visual Designer

Stay in touch

We would love to learn more about you and how we might be able to help you embed long-term change in your role and organisation. We’re looking forward to connecting with you.

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Contact
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0492 448 610

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[email protected]

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3/95 Bathurst Street, Brewarrina NSW 2839

Services
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Sarah Ciftci

Researcher and Consultant

Sarah Ciftci is a non-Indigenous woman living on the lands of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation. Sarah is committed to promoting cultural diversity, inclusion and social justice and is passionate about decolonising research methodology and practice. She values deep listening, empathy, and respect and applies this to all she does, personally and professionally.

Qualifications

Sarah completed her PhD (Social Sciences) at the University of Sydney and holds a Bachelor of Socio-Legal Studies with First Class Honours, also from the University of Sydney.

Experience

Sarah has ten years of experience conducting research and evaluation projects with First Nations and Torres Strait Islander people and communities across multiple policy contexts, including child protection and wellbeing, family violence, health and education. She currently holds an academic research position at the Research Centre for Children and Families, The University of Sydney, where she coordinates an ARC-funded Linkage Project that explores practice change in the out-of-home care sector. She previously held academic roles as a lecturer, unit coordinator and tutor at both The University of Sydney and the University of Tasmania.

Sarah brings high level skills in stakeholder engagement, data analysis and writing to the team. Examples of her academic publications include:

McLeod, K., Moore, R., Robinson, D., Ozkul, D., Ciftci, S., Vincent, K. (2020) ‘Using the pluriverse concept to critique Eurocentrism in education’, Journal of Applied Learning & Teaching, 3 (Special Issue No. 1): 30-39.

Ciftci, S (2018) Making Space for Indigenous Justice in the Child Welfare and Protection Space in Hendry, J, Tatum, M, Jorgensen, M and Howard-Wagner, D (eds) Indigenous Justice: New Tools, Approaches and Spaces, Bristol: Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies, Palgrave Macmillan.

Sarah Ciftci

Dixie Crawford

Administrator

Kym is a non-Indigenous woman who resides on the lands of the Ngunnawal people.  She is the proud wife of an ex-military man and mother of their two (2) children. Thanks to over a decade in military life, they have experienced and lived in several locations along the east coast of Australia, ranging from Townsville, Queensland, to Sydney, New South Wales and now call Canberra, ACT,home.

Kym is committed to delivering outstanding customer service and a first-class client experience/customer journey. She values honesty, reliability and professionalism. Her attention to detail is exceptional, and she always takes the initiative by thinking three steps ahead. Kym prides herself on being an active listener and a problem solver who uses logic and her proactivity to provide authentic support.

Qualifications

Kym has traditional qualifications in Certificate IV in Government, Certificate IV in Business Administration, Certificate III in Business Administration and Lead Auditor Training (ISO9001).

Experience

In her corporate life, Kym has held roles in the Executive Support space where she feels most at home, including as a Personal Assistant, Executive Assistant, Administrator, and Business Manager.

For the better part of the last decade, Kym has worked in the same Executive Support space, taking a more hands-on approach and partnering with many like-minded, successful business coaches and consultants in Australia.

Vanessa Schimizzi

Visual Designer

Vanessa is an experienced visual designer with over ten years of experience in the creative field. Vanessa has a demonstrated history of working with government, not-for-profit and private sectors. She has expert skills in Bid Design, Brand Design and Management, Website and Digital Design, Visual Design, Marketing Communications, WCAG2.1 accessibility and Stakeholder Engagement. 

Vanessa is passionate about using a human-centred approach to create beautiful, purposeful designs that engage audiences by providing simple solutions to complex problems. She is committed to helping professionals increase reach and engagement with their respective audiences.

Vanessa’s double degree in Advertising and Marketing Communications and Graphic Design from the University of Canberra, along with Design Thinking for Innovation from RMIT, has made Vanessa a highly sought-after graphic designer working in the industries of healthcare, consulting, construction, professional sport, and transport while delivering on several Commonwealth Government contracts.

Vanessa’s qualifications as a trained expert in WCAG accessibility demonstrate her commitment to inclusion.

She has not only applied accessibility standards to all her work but also continues to train and coach other visual designers in the standard.

Vanessa has designed several Reconciliation Action Plans (RAP) in collaboration with First Nations artists. Vanessa understands the process from start to finish while maintaining the highest cultural respect and professional standards, as well as the integrity of story-telling and connection. Vanessa is efficient in her working style, maintaining a high level of focus on processes and project management to ensure all design work is completed on time, exceeding the expectations of clients and communities. 

Vanessa works with Nganya to ensure the intention of an organisation’s vision, mission and action on reconciliation is visually engaging and conveys a story of impact, intention and people potential.

In 2021, Vanessa was named Young Businesswoman of the Year at the Canberra Women in Business Gala Awards, a sure testament to her design skills and work ethic.