Noongar woman Charmaine Councillor, from Bunbury in Western Australia, is fully vaccinated but understands why almost 80 per cent of her community is not.
"We don't actually see it on television. We always see other communities from other places (getting vaccinated); we don't know these people," she said.
"But [it would help] if we could see our own local people ... maybe nurses that are Aboriginal, that we do know of, or health workers that are actually delivering the vaccine and people that are actually saying 'yes, I've had my vaccine'."
Ms Councillor was a participant in an Edith Cowan University study that has held workshops with around 60 participants in Bunbury as well as Mandurah, Armadale and Narrogin.
Director of the Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet Neil Drew is running the project and said while it's a small sample size and the results are preliminary, he wants to share them now.
"We just felt there was enough of a message coming through that we wanted to get into the conversation now rather than waiting until our report came out next year," he said.
Professor Drew said the key message, was that Aboriginal people lack trust in government messaging about COVID-19 and are more likely to listen to it if it is shared by 'natural helpers'.
Natural helpers are people Aboriginal people naturally turn to in a crisis — like elders and working members of the community.
"The other thing that they asked of us, and I think this is a really important point, they said, can you bring along a medical professional who will attend the workshop and answer our questions for us," Professor Drew said.
Natural helpers make a difference
Noongar elder Brett Hill is working as a cultural adviser to the project and said he had already witnessed the benefits of natural helpers.
"We had some people working in the prison system, so they were able to get information and pass that on to the prisoners," he said.
"There were others that were in the education system ... those that are working in an industry ... they generally get access to information.
Mr Hill is one of just 288 Indigenous people living in Mandurah who are fully vaccinated. The Indigenous vaccination rate there sits at just 17 per cent.
"What the community is saying to us is that information, be it pamphlets or one-page flyers, wasn't up to date," he said.
Ms Councillor agrees.
"I think there just needs to be more updates ... it's like it's gone quiet," she said.
