Members of the Highlands community will be among thousands across the country who will acknowledge the 20th anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report.
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Funding from the Healing Foundation will enable the Wingecarribee Reconciliation Group (WRG) to hold a commemorative event. A Yarning Up Respect and healing event will be held at the Wingecarribee Aboriginal Community Cultural Centre to commemorate the report’s 20th anniversary.
Members of the Stolen Generations and their families and descendants will come together on May 21, to raise awareness of the outstanding needs of Stolen Generations members and their descendants. All community members are invited to the centre for a day of cultural activities, including Acknowledgement of Country, a healing Smoking Ceremony, Didgeridoo playing and dancing with a barbecue lunch. There will also be a photographic display of the involvement of WRG and Aboriginal community members in the processes of reconciliation in the Wingecarribee Shire over the past two decades.
WRG secured a grant from the Healing Foundation to host a commemorative event, as part of a new project called Heal Our Past, Build Our Future, BTH20. The Bringing Them Home Report was tabled in Parliament in 1997, following a two-year national inquiry. It was the first to extensively document the experiences of people who had been forcibly removed from their families as children and the ongoing impact in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
WRG chairperson Kim Leevers said the event in May would help promote discussion on what more needs to be done. “The event will provide an opportunity to talk about what we still need to do to address the trauma in our community,” he said. “As part of the ongoing healing process, WRG wants to work with local Aboriginal people to share their stories and celebrate the oldest living culture in the world.”
Mr Leevers said the 2016 National Reconciliation Week healing event was a great conversation, where local Aboriginal identities shared their experiences, including how government policies and laws from the earliest days of the invasion affected their lives. The event was held in partnership with the Yamanda Aboriginal Association. Aunt Val Mulcahy OAM, Wayne Williams, Garry Russell and Marie Barbaric shared their experiences. Details: reconciliation.wingecarribee@gmail.com or 0409463123.
