Lester Irabinna Rigney

Mr Rigney is 35 years of age and lives in Adelaide, Australia. He holds a BEd, an MEd, and is in the process of completing a PhD. He is currently a Lecturer at Flinders University, and his work is concerned with Indigenous Australian Rights in education and language, with close involvement in formalizing Indigenous studies at Flinders University. Over the last decade his activities and achievements have focused on Indigenous Intellectual Sovereignty, and he is a member of several local Aboriginal community organisations who also represent and advocate for Indigenous Education/Language. In addition, Mr Rigney has presented at a Working Group on Indigenous Populations of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, and has researched, written and presented on a variety of Indigenous issues. He is also a member of the National Treaty Think Tank Committee coordinated by Australia’s main Indigenous agency, ATSIC. Mr Rigney seeks an empowering framework of human rights knowledge and mechanisms for discourse through which the Australian Indigenous claims for justice may be asserted. He hopes that the training will enable him to develop community awareness and knowledge of regional and international meetings, forums, and conventions that can be used to effect positive change for Indigenous peoples and their way of life.