When Britt Hollingworth takes the Bush Medijina women to sell their skincare in Sydney or Melbourne, the expedition can cost around $20,000. Getting products onto a market table requires flights, allowances and organisational stamina. But while running this social enterprise, she has watched women acquire sales skills, find their bearings and become comfortable catching a Melbourne tram. 

“Our ladies love these trips,” she told Inside Retail. For the CEO of Anindilyakwa Services Aboriginal Corporation, which operates skin and bodycare brand Bush Medijina, the costs are outweighed by the confidence and independence the women gain, which stay with them when they return home.

Founded in 2016, Bush Medijina is an Indigenous-owned, women-led brand. The enterprise infuses generations of bush medicine knowledge into its balms, soaps and body butters (to name a few). It reaches stockists, including Byron Bay’s Spell, opened a Cairns shop in 2024 and collected a 2019 NT Telstra Business Award along the way.

Back on Groote Eylandt, off the Northern Territory coast, the enterprise operates from headquarters comprising five shipping containers in Angurugu. Soothing balms, bush blossom butters, soaps, oils and other skincare products make up the range – Anindilyakwa women harvest botanicals on Country, prepare them and handmake products before packaging and dispatching orders. 

Hollingworth has been involved since the beginning. She calls herself the “accidental CEO”, explaining that the women’s trust and her commitment to supporting their decisions have been pivotal in her role.

Hollingworth and three other non-Indigenous corporate staff handle strategy, marketing, packaging and raw-material purchasing, while an all-Anindilyakwa board holds decision-making authority.

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