During the National Reconciliation Week this year, our students at the Centacare Fremantle training site came together to celebrate the occasion, held each year from 27 May to 3 June. It is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia.

We invited Centacare’s Aboriginal Community Development Officer, Simone Collard, to help us commemorate the occasion by sharing her understanding of Reconciliation Week. Simone incorporated a range of class activities that will encourage students to better understand the significance of the week. The students gathered in the classrooms and took part in creating some Aboriginal art and painting as reflected in the photos.

Reconciliation Week commemorates two significant milestones – Australia’s most successful referendum took place on 27 May 1967 with more than 90 per cent of Australians voted to give the Australian Government power to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and recognise them in the Census; and on 3 June 1992, the culmination of Eddie Koiki Mabo’s challenge to the legal fiction of ‘terra nullius’ (land belonging to no one). This decision paved the way for Native Title.

This year’s theme, Be Brave. Make Change, calls on Australians to make change beginning with brave actions in their daily lives – where they live, work, play and socialise. At Centacare, we recognise that reconciliation requires a deep reckoning with historical and contemporary injustices towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The National Reconciliation Week is an opportunity for us to demonstrate our commitment to reconciliation by hosting an event with our staff and students. Towards the end of the event, students and staff shared a damper with honey as well as butter chicken with rice as sharing food from different cultures.

For more information about the Reconciliation Week, visit: https://nrw.reconciliation.org.au/