"When you feel the cool wind, you know — make it your time," June Oscar AO said, welcoming the group to Bunuba Country in WA's Kimberley region.

The moment marked the beginning of the inaugural Peacebuilding Co-Design Camp, held last year by the Wiyi Yani U Thangani Institute.

The Wiyi Yani U Thangani Institute is a national First Nations-led body advancing systemic change by centring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women's leadership, led by Bunuba leader June Oscar.

The camp began in Rubibi (Broome), where over fifty women and girls were welcomed to Yawuru Country by Elder and Matriarch Dianne Appleby.

After coffee and food, the women loaded into cars and travelled inland — leaving sealed roads and phone reception behind on a four-hour drive to Bunuba Country.

The group sat around fresh water systems, with the splash across rocks providing a humming rhythm to Ms Oscar and Bunuba leader Patsy Bedford signing in language.

Departing from a corporate setting, the camp centred learning on Country, drawing on cultural knowledge and lived experience as the foundation for change over five days.

Participants took part in yarning circles and systems-design conversations, exploring what justice and wellbeing look like when led by First Nations women.

Big hART, an arts and social change organisation were there to share and capture stories of matriarchal power through Punkaliyarra.

Punkaliyarra is a gender justice project developed on Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi Country in Roebourne, in WA's Pilbara, working with local women to strengthen First Nations women's leadership through community programs and touring artistic work.

The Wiyi Yani U Thangani Institute has described the camp as a way of building the "infrastructure behind the movement" — creating shared language and tools to support long-term social change.

Insights from the camp are intended to inform the Institute's ongoing work in advancing gender justice and amplifying Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women's voices at a national level.