Celebrating National Reconciliation Week: 'Now more than ever'

Every year our National Reconciliation Week celebrations get bigger and our vision for reconciliation more ambitious.

This year our Cultural Ambassador Uncle John Baxter welcomed over 100 people to an event at the Aboriginal Advancement League in Thornbury, a significant cultural space for the First Nations Community. Along with our staff and volunteers, we were thrilled to host many First Nations Community members in discussing this year’s theme of ‘Now More Than Ever’. Our MC was Shelley Ware, a proud Yankunyjatjara and Wirangu woman. The event included reflections on the outcome of the Voice Referendum campaign and messages of hope about how we can work together to continue the reconciliation journey.

BSL’s Executive Director Travers McLeod spoke about conversations already underway for our new Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), with our current RAP finishing at the end of May. With all the great work that has happened under our RAP over the past few years, he also noted we need to be humble about the incredible amount of work still to be done as an organisation. This will require practical actions for justice and truth-telling, as well as advancing the cause of reconciliation both individually and collectively. The full BSL Statement of Commitment to Reconciliation is available on our website and has been signed by Travers McLeod and BSL’s Board Chair, Stephen Newton, who also attended the event.

A powerful speech by Richard Frankland, a proud Gunditjmara man, reminded us of the strength and resilience of First Nations people, both before and after colonisation. As a filmmaker, writer, poet and musician, Richard has been telling stories of both hope and despair for many decades. He reminded us:

Make no mistake, we are at a crossroads. First Nations people are the most incarcerated people in the world. The suicide rate is absolutely phenomenal. Our women are killed at a rate 17 times more than non-Aboriginal women in DV matters. Our young face the challenge of meth or ice. They face the challenge of social media with any depravity you want at the click of a button, and that's a legacy that we have left them. We have disempowered our youth by creating a complex cultural load that they cannot possibly manage on their own.

So, what is our task? Quite simple really.

It’s to plant trees that we will never see the shade of. It’s to create a common vision for victory together. It‘s to challenge the inner racist. It’s to reseed the cultural wasteland. It's to unravel the cultural tapestry of a nation and weave it back together so it is us - not us and them.