WARNING. LONG POST Jaali and his school celebrated NAIDOC Week this week, as it was actually held a week over the school holidays, so the school couldnt celebrate it then. Jaali participated in 2 days worth of activities....more than the other non indigenous students....to give him and other indigenous kids time to meet elders and learn some culturally applicable things and participate in some fun activities. The children in the Gurri group (indigenous kids in the school) also ran the weekly school assembly, (which I missed because I was at school, but it was videoed for me) enlightening the other students on all sorts of things to do with NAIDOC week. This weeks school newsletter focuses on NAIDOC week and the group RECOGNISE (chx youtube and google) Here are some of the things that were pointed out in the newsletter that I wanted to share with you. •Indigenous Australians have not always had the right to vote. It was not until 1962 that WA legislated that indigenous Australians could vote, and QLD was the last state to legislate to allow them to vote in 1965 • Every state but QLD and WA had allowed all male British subjects to vote before that (and indigenous women, when non indigenous women won the right to vote at the beginning of the 20th Century), but few aboriginal people knew of those rights, because they did not have the same citizenship rights as other Australians • In 1949, indigenous Australians were classified as citizens of Australia • Hundreds of indigenous Australians fought in both the First and Second World Wars, despite not having equal citizenship rights as white Australians • It was not until 1967 that Australians (including indigenous Australians) voted to do two things: firstly, to include Aboriginal Australians in the population census and secondly to allow the Federal Government to make laws specifically about indigenous people of any state. Indigenous Australians existed, but were not counted in the census until this referendum passed Crazy huh? I am grateful for Jaalis school to make a big deal about NAIDOC week, and for educating the mass school population on things such as the points above. I thank them for getting local elders to come and share time with the kids, and I am grateful that they have a special class for Jaali and his indigenous friends, which is facilitated by a local Gumbaynggirr woman once a week. I love the support that Jaalis school gives to Indigenous children and culture in general. They should be very proud of themselves. :)
Posted on: Fri, 25 Jul 2014 12:34:35 +0000
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