Busking For Change 2026 song inspired by the kids of Brewarrina

ARIA-award winning rapper DOBBY has had many proud moments as a young musician, but one of his proudest has been co-writing this year’s Busking for Change song, MINYAN NGABANGKA (What’s in the Water?).

Each year, the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) creates a new song in partnership with a remote community through its Busking For Change fundraiser.

Students across the country have the opportunity to learn and perform the song while raising funds to help kids in remote communities access books in language.

This year’s song was co-written by ILF Ambassador DOBBY, First Nations artist Kelsey Iris and children from the remote NSW Community of Brewarrina.

Inspired by Brewarrina’s deep connection to the Baawan/Bama River, the song features Murrawarri language and invites students across the country to engage with one of the world’s oldest living cultures through music.

For First Nations and Filipino musician DOBBY, whose family connections run deep in Brewarrina and Weilmoringle, bringing Busking For Change to his community has been especially meaningful.

“It’s a great honour to host Busking For Change 2026 in Brewarrina” DOBBY said. “Brewarrina (or Bre for short) is my family’s home. My grandmother was born and raised in Bre, and her father (my great grandfather) old George Shearer was born underneath the Birthing Tree* in the Culgoa River in Weilmoringle, Murrawarri Country.

“It’s a beautiful history that I am very proud of.”

In the song’s title, “minyan” means “what” and “ngabangka” means “in the water” in Murrawarri language.

The phrase was inspired by the talent, energy and spirit of Brewarrina’s young people.

“The song is MINYAN NGABANGKA because this community and these kids are so deadly*, we were like, ‘What’s in the water?’,” Kelsey Iris said. “And then it’s all connected. Our water is life, and it just means so much to us Mob here that are from the rivers.”

The song was developed in collaboration with Elders and Knowledge Holders, including Aunty Missy, ensuring local language, culture and stories remained at the heart of the project. For Ms Iris, the project highlighted the important role Aboriginal languages played in keeping culture and literacy alive.

“We know that literacy is a really fundamental and important part of all of our lives, especially for children. Language has to be a part of that,” Ms Iris said. “Language is so critical and important to our young people, to our kids, and it’s so important that children are speaking and celebrating language every day.”

DOBBY agreed that keeping language alive was important.

“Busking for Change helps us all to sing some of the many, many languages of this country,” he said. “Last year we sang a song in Yawuru* language, and this year we’ll be singing in Murrawarri – how special is that?”

He became an ILF ambassador after being inspired by the charity’s community-led work.

“I love what the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) does; they work hard to make books in different Indigenous languages, both for the community and for us to read and learn about it,” he said. “It’s a great group of people making change one book at a time.”

Brewarrina, in northwest New South Wales, is home to the Ngemba people and renowned for baiame’s ngunnhu (fish traps). Thought to be more than 40,000 years old, the traps are believed to be among the oldest human-made structures in the world.

As students across Australia prepare to busk, sing and fundraise in 2026, Brewarrina’s young people will be sharing more than a song, they will be helping a new generation connect with the stories, language and cultural knowledge of Brewarrina.

DOBBY said music had an important role to play in making the world a better place.

“Learning, writing and performing music is the absolute best way to express yourself and learn about others,” he said. “If more people played and sang music, we would be living in a much better world; harmonious and unifying*.”

He said he hoped to sing songs from more communities as the Busking For Change program continued to grow into the future. And as for MINYAN NGABANGKA – he hoped 100 schools would sign up to learn and sing this song about his family’s home.

“And I hope you enjoy it so much that it gets stuck in your head for days and days, singing it on the bus or in the car or wherever,” he said.

For more information and to register schools or community groups for the fundraiser, teachers can visit buskingforchange.org.au.

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GLOSSARY

• Birthing Tree: a sacred and safe place where First Nations women of the community went to give birth
• deadly: a term often used in First Nations culture to mean awesome or fantastic
• Yawuru: a Western Nyulnyulan language spoken on the coast south of Broome in Western Australia
• unifying: bringing together

EXTRA READING
Song every Australian should know
Song to save Indigenous languages
Great Book Swap takes fresh flight

QUICK QUIZ
1. Which remote community was involved in this year’s Busking For Change campaign?
2. What does MINYAN NGABANGKA translate to?
3. Which First Nations language does the song feature?
4. How was DOBBY involved in this year’s Busking for Change campaign?
5. Why should schools get involved in the Busking For Change campaign?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Meaningful song lyrics
What message do you think the title of the song What’s in the Water? represents?

Why is music a successful way to teach culture?

Why are songs good for learning languages?

Write a small verse of your own celebrating your own family or community culture.

Time: allow 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: Music, English, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
Write down a few Murrawarri words from the article and write why it is important to keep First Nations languages alive.

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Intercultural, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Read this!
A headline on an article – or a title on your text – should capture the attention of the audience, telling them to read this now. So choosing the perfect words for a headline or title is very important.

Create three new headlines for the events that took place in this article. Remember, what you write and how you write it will set the pace for the whole text, so make sure it matches.

Read out your headlines to a partner and discuss what the article will be about based on the headline you created. Discuss the tone and mood you set in just your few, short words. Does it do the article justice? Will it capture the audience’s attention the way you hoped? Would you want to read more?

Consider how a headline or title is similar to using short, sharp sentences throughout your text. They can be just as important as complex ones. Go through the last text you wrote and highlight any short, sharp sentences that capture the audience.