"We let them know they don't need to waste their lives" - Bethany Langdon, youth worker

Like most of the 900 or so Warlpiri people who make their home in Yuendumu, an Aboriginal community smudged in the vast crimson sands of the Northern Territory's Tanami Desert, 19-year-old Bethany Langdon wasn't part of the Stolen Generations. Still, as she watched Kevin Rudd's televised apology on February 13 last year, the bright young mum and respected community mentor felt a flutter of satisfaction. "In my heart I thought, 'It's about time,'" Bethany recalls. "I didn't know, maybe things would be a bit different?" It took exactly 24 days for her to find out.

On March 8 last year, Bethany and 15 other Warlpiri women and children travelled excitedly to Alice Springs, 300km southwest of Yuendumu, to train as lifeguards for their hometown's yet-to-open public pool. "We booked into a hostel, we paid for it, but once we checked in the lady at reception told us she had some complaints from other customers," Bethany remembers. Some Japanese tourists had apparently become distressed when they caught sight of the Aboriginal women, and the receptionist allegedly asked Bethany and her friends to leave. "She said we were scaring the customers away," Bethany says. "I felt like crying."

Indeed, the Prime Minister's healing words arrived in remote Yuendumu as little more than a distant echo. "The apology went almost unnoticed here," says 54-year-old Susie Low, manager of the Mt Theo Program, a scheme set up in the early 1990s to tackle an epidemic of petrol sniffing among local youths. Instead, she says, the main topic of conversation in Yuendumu remains the Northern Territory National Emergency Response - better known as the intervention - launched by former PM John Howard's government in August 2007. Aimed at tackling widespread child sexual abuse in outback communities, the intervention imposed sweeping and often controversial changes.
Access to alcohol and pornography was restricted, some welfare payments were quarantined, and relevant Aboriginal lands were acquired through compulsory five-year leases.

Rather than helping to quell drinking, the immediate result in Yuendumu was an escalation in alcohol abuse. "Because everyone was so upset," explains Susie. "They were all worried, 'Are they really taking our land?'" While the drinking has settled down, "it's been a nightmare year for Aboriginal people," says Susie. "There's been a lot of confusion."

Yet through it all, the people of Yuendumu have quietly pressed ahead with an intervention of their own. The Mt Theo Program was founded in 1994 by Warlpiri elders to combat the frightening scourge of petrol abuse. The effects of sniffing were horrific. "We have young people here now who have been brain damaged and we have one who was severely burned while sniffing," explains Susie. "He lives with the result of those burns and will be in pain for the rest of his life."

Scared they were going to lose an entire generation of kids, the community took action. Sniffers were rounded up and taken to the Mt Theo Outstation, 160km away, where they were kept for a month - sometimes more - under the care of elders who engaged them traditional ways, like hunting and story telling. Slowly but surely, the tide began to turn. Today, petrol sniffing is extremely rare in Yuendumu and the Mt Theo Program has evolved into a full-scale system of treatment, aftercare, youth leadership, and vocational training.

Many former sniffers have joined the ranks Mt Theo's 93 youth mentors, known as Jaru Pirrjirdi (Warlpiri for "strong voices"). Bethany Langdon is one of the leading Jaru Pirrjirdi. Although she had her first child, daughter Kiara, at 14, she eschewed drugs and alcohol, focusing instead on her education and dancing. About four years ago, she started working in the Mt Theo head offices in Yuendumu before becoming a Jaru Pirrjirdi and tackling the town's problems head-on. "On Thursdays and weekends, we go out to look around for young girls in trouble, maybe they've had domestic violence happen," Bethany explains. "We go and take them out bush, maybe cook some kangaroo tail and talk story, talk about our cultural ways. We let them know they have a strong culture they should be proud and that they don't need to waste their lives." Although the government intervention cracked down on grog, "We still have problems with alcohol coming in, ganja [marijuana] and jealousy fights, y'know, domestic violence," says Bethany. "It makes me feel sad, but we're able to do something about it."

The Jaru Pirrjirdi also conducts night school for local children and works with youth on career development - but they're almost always on hand any time problems flare in Yuendumu. "Because of this mentoring program, we basically have eyes and ears in every household," says Susie Low, a mother of five who arrived in the community from Sydney in 2004. "Before, we didn't know what was going on anywhere. The [Jaru Pirrjirdi] are the people that will talk down people before they actually commit suicide, or intervene in a domestic violence incident before it turns nasty. They do absolutely amazing stuff."

Bethany shrugs humbly when this is put to her in a Mt Theo meeting room, but she's less able to conceal her pride in her new role as a Yuendumu lifeguard. She trained while pregnant with second daughter Timika, now five months old, and gained her bronze medallion in time for the grand opening of the new pool on October 27. If the children of Yuendumu attend school, they can go for a dip under the watchful eye of Bethany and her fellow lifesavers. "We have the saying, 'Yes school, yes pool,'" Bethany says as a flock of noisy children arrive at the meeting room for an afternoon homework session. "So it's also about getting better education, a better future." It's an attitude that inspires awe in Susie Low. "It beats me how they survive," she says. "They must wake up every day and think 'What shit's going to go down to today?' I just have so much admiration for them."

Read more about how Kevin Rudd's apology effected other indigenous women - and how they're helping their communities - in this month's marie claire.