This year, the theme of NAIDOC Week is – Heal Country – which calls for all of us to continue to seek greater protections for our lands, our waters, our sacred sites and our cultural heritage from exploitation, desecration and destruction.
NAIDOC 2021 invites the nation to embrace First Nations’ cultural knowledge and understanding of Country as part of Australia’s national heritage and equally respect the culture and values of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders as they do the cultures and values of all Australians.
As NAIDOC Week falls in the school holidays, staff and students celebrated in the last week of Term 2 by conducting some activities within their own classrooms. On Friday of Week 1, Term 3, we were lucky enough to be visited by local Indigenous elders Len Yarran and Ian Clint, who performed for us a Welcome to Country, Smoking Ceremony, NAIDOC Week Talk and Didgeridoo playing.
Len spoke to the students about many things, however, some of his most important comments revolved around ensuring that the young children of today learn to take care of their country so that it is usable for future generations, just as the Indigenous Australians have for many years. Additionally, he spoke about the importance of building good relationships with everyone, which is something we strive to do with our students every day here at St Dominic’s.
We were also lucky enough to have some student questions at the end. Our very talented Year 2’s were even able to recite how they say hello and welcome in Noongar language – See the video below of the Year 2’s saying hello and welcome to Mr Bolding recently in class.
A big thank you to Len for coming out to visit. We hope to have them back again soon, which they were very keen for when we asked them. Some photos from todays event can be found in the link below and in the short video.
NAIDOC Week Photo Album
Alex Paljetak
Assistant Principal