“I started the Kiilalaana Foundation because I was fed up with the deficit narrative around women and around Aboriginal people and youth from an empowerment perspective. Everything was about ‘closing the gap’. It was this deficit narrative. What I wanted to start from was our power, and our potential.”

But the Kiilalaana Foundation is quite a recent part of Shantelle’s story. Known as the Barkindji Warrior, she is a three-time Brazilian jiu-jiutsu world champion, who continues to train in hopes of achieving another title.

Shantelle has found jiu-jitsu in three key stages of her life. Initially, she was using the martial art form to find her place in the world as a young woman.

“Jiu-jiutsu found me as a very angry young woman who was carrying a lot of pain. But when it came down to making the choice of accepting the status quo or stepping into the unknown, I thought, you know what? I don’t know what’s gonna happen on the other side of pursuing this, but that journey seems to call me and seems to feel better than staying here accepting this deficit narrative that other people are trying to tell me.”

As Shantelle became a parent, she continued to draw on jiu-jitsu as she experienced postpartum depression.

“My partner suggested that I go back to jiu-jitsu and use it as a form of physical therapy. When I first started back at jiu-jitsu, I needed to create space between my suffering and between my healing, and jiu-jitsu kinda gave me that space slowly over time.

There were days where he literally had to drag me to training because I did not have it in me. But, eventually, after a couple of months, the darkness started to lift. It started to shift. And then, about 6 months into training, our head coach at the time was like, ‘hey, we’re going to the state championships.”

Here marks the third stage of Shantelle’s relationship with jiu-jitsu; as an athlete. She has gone on to compete and win the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu World Championship three times. This is alongside her titles in national and pan-pacific competitions.

“Because I started to compete, it started to change my relationship with food, with discipline, with my mental health, with resilience, and having a dream that was bigger than my challenges. I was willing to understand that by making short term sacrifices, I was setting myself up to have longer term gains.”

These kinds of gains didn’t just affect Shantelle herself but also extended to her family and her community. In all of her endeavours, she aims to be true to herself and in turn, this provides opportunities for fellow members of her community. 

“​​I’m a life weaver, so I weave different roles together from a core purpose of me becoming my most powerful self, me stepping into being heart led and being purpose led so that it then ripples out into the things and the roles that I hold. Being an Aboriginal woman is one of the core foundations of why I show up as an entrepreneur, as an athlete and why I founded the Kiilalaana Foundation.”

Shantelle Thompson is continuing to inspire young Indigenous women to push the boundaries and seek out their passions. It’s through the channelling of her own adverse experiences that Shantelle has developed her identity while continuing to grow and change.