Wiradjuri Elder Uncle Stanley Grant Snr AM has received the NAIDOC Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s 2022 NAIDOC Awards.

The prestigious award recognises his outstanding and ongoing contribution to the advocacy of First Nations people within the recipient’s community and beyond.

Uncle Stan has had a profound impact on improving the lives of First Nations people, especially through his extensive work with reconstruction and education of the Wiradjuri language.

For more than 30 years, Uncle Stan travelled to First Nations communities in rural and urban areas with his brother, the late Pastor Cec Grant OAM, and Dr John Rudde, teaching the Wiradjuri language to First Nations people of all ages through the production of children’s books, dictionaries, song books and university texts.

Uncle Stan has also made a long-standing contribution to Charles Sturt University as the coordinator of the University's Graduate Certificate in Wiradjuri Language, Culture and Heritage.

Charles Sturt Vice-Chancellor Professor Renée Leon said Uncle Stan has played an instrumental role in the teachings of the Wiradjuri language at the University.

“Uncle Stan was integral to the establishment of Charles Sturt University’s Graduate Certificate in Wiradjuri Language, Culture and Heritage,” Professor Leon said.

“Together, with Uncle Stan’s late sister Aunty Flo Grant, they created the Graduate Certificate, which has supported many students to develop a greater understanding of their traditional language.

“On behalf of the University I warmly congratulate Uncle Stan on this well-deserved honour.”

Charles Sturt’s Graduate Certificate in Wiradjuri Language, Culture and Heritage is collaboratively designed, governed, and delivered with the active leadership of Uncle Stan and Wiradjuri Elders, who are custodians of Wiradjuri knowledge and language in the Riverina region. Since 2014, graduates, particularly Wiradjuri students, report a strengthening of connection to culture and community through language.

Uncle Stan’s extensive contribution to communities within the Charles Sturt footprint, particularly First Nations people, was acknowledged in 2013 when he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by former Charles Sturt Chancellor Mr Lawrie Willett, AO.  

Uncle Stan was awarded a Member (AM) in the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2009 for 'service to Indigenous education and the preservation and promotion of the Wiradjuri language and culture, as a teacher and author, and to youth'.

He grew up in Griffith in the north-western area of the Riverina region in NSW. 

ENDS