Whadjuk Ballardong woman Rebecca Barlow has learned a fair bit in the six years since she began her fashion label Deadly Denim.

She's a creative person — and there are some more mundane aspects to running a business she simply doesn't have the time or the skills to cover.

But when she was asked by a Perth university to take part in a course bringing together students and Indigenous business owners like herself, she was in.

The Edith Cowan University unit, Retail Marketing, sees students use First Nations owned enterprises as their real-world case-study for assignments like developing a marketing strategy or redesigning their website.

Ms Barlow, whose work has been shown at fashion shows across Australia, and even New York and Paris, said it was about creating a safe space for the students to learn in an inclusive and diverse workforce.

"I often get asked, because I'm very fair [skinned], if I'm allowed to do what I do, and I've never been offended by that. I think that's really great that people ask," she said.

Opportunities for reconciliation

Lecturer Melissa Fong-Emmerson said the unit had input from Indigenous colleagues, mentors, friends and communities.

"[We are] including their views of the world in a strength-based way, and in a way to decolonise the marketing industry and higher education," she said.

"It's a transition from a culture of exclusion to one of inclusion.

"As educators, we are well positioned to prepare our students for multicultural, diverse workforces, while also promoting reconciliation and better outcomes by recognising the importance of Indigenous knowledge and perspectives.

Space for 'mob to be seen and heard'

Nyikina woman and artist Molly West took part in the course last year with her small business, Bilya Djinda.

"Aboriginal people, like all First Nations people, have been educators for tens of thousands of years, with each generation responsible for passing on that knowledge to the next," the 18-year-old from Northam said.

"Over the last few centuries Aboriginal people's voices have been oppressed, and this really important cycle of knowledge sharing was interrupted, which meant that our stories weren't being shared and our culture not understood.

"So what we need to do now is create the new cycles of First Nation knowledge, which is exactly what's happening when we create that space for us mob to be seen and heard."

Marketing student Jessie Barnes worked with Ms Barlow and Deadly Denim two years ago, picking up some design work for the company after completing the unit.

"It was really important to learn about the cultural differences and the backgrounds so that we could respectfully represent her business," she said.

Another student, Olivia Warner, worked with Ms West more recently and said the opportunity had provided her with so much more than simply learning aspects related to her degree.

"I am very conscious of the fact that I don't have a network of people around me with any Indigenous culture at all," she said.

"I think the beauty of [this] unit, and the message behind it, is that this is the place to have those kinds of conversations.

"Teaching university students to have these kinds of conversations, empowers them to have these kinds of conversations once they leave uni and challenge that in institutions."

As a passionate educator, Ms West – a descendant of the Stolen Generation – couldn't agree more.

"Education of our culture should be incorporated across as many fields as possible as it impacts so much whether we're discussing land management, art, history, teaching, storytelling, etc," she said.

"And who better to learn all this from than Aboriginal people.

"It's a really important concept to keep in mind that if First Nations people are being discussed, we should be included in that discussion."

And Ms West said decolonising universities and other Western practices and institutions provided a safe space for Aboriginal people to be themselves.

"And by being ourselves, we get to excel and do some really incredible things," she said.