NAIDOC Week celebrations will be held throughout next week right across the nation, to celebrate, recognise and learn from First Nations culture and history.
Broken Hil will be no exception with a huge number of local organisations and community members working to prepare a diverse and rich calendar of events throughout the week.
Worimi Man Cory Paulson, who has been part of the 2022 NAIDOC committee said that it is great to emerge with so many agencies getting involved after the last two years where due to COVID, NAIDOC celebrations were not possible.
When I got involved in 2017 it was very much an inter-agency group of workers that came together to represent their organisation to put on events throughout the week of NAIDOC.
“It was heavily influenced by Maari ma, Broken Hil Local Aboriginal Land Council and The Community Working Party,” he said.
“The Committee has grown in those years to be much more inclusive of other agencies that are popping up around Broken Hill”
“The Committee is open for community members to come and sit and contribute, if you have capacity and if you feel like you can add value, you can show up!”
The invitation or prompt for this year’s national festival is Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! Which invites people to contemplate discuss and question the many ways all Australians can be a part of assisting structural, institutional, and systemic change for Aboriginal communities.
Broken Hill will be inviting people to engage in discussions through events ranging from cinema screenings, brunch and morning tea events, arts and crafts workshops, a colour run, barbecues, ceremonial gatherings, and a two-day Mutawintji Cultural Festival.
Mr Paulson said that for him NAIDOC has always been a celebration of Aboriginal culture, as well as an opportunity for reflection.
“Reflection for me on my elders, my ancestors, on where I come from and as a visitor to Wilyakali country I am completely mindful of their leadership and their ancestral ways of knowing, being and doing.”
Mr Paulson said that the flag raising on the Monday will set the tone for listening to the voices of the elders in the community.
“The raising of the flags for the community is a really a good show of unity in the spirit of NAIDOC and celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture alongside the wider community.
You can see the huge range of activities happening from tomorrow morning, in the full schedule of events is below.
