AAC along with other community organisations in Tom Price met on a regular basis for months to plan our NAIDOC 2021 event. We originally planned to have it earlier this year, but our plans were postponed due to sorry business in the community.
On Friday 5 November we held our NAIDOC event on the Village Green, right in the town centre. Our Sundowner event started at 5pm with a Welcome to Country by Aboriginal Elder, Brendan Cooke. This was followed by the opening of the event by Hon. Peter Foster MLC Member for Mining and Pastoral Region.
This year’s NAIDOC theme is Heal Country. Healing Country means hearing those pleas to provide greater management, involvement, and empowerment by Indigenous peoples over country.
Photo credit: Elly Lukale.
Country is family, kin, law, lore, ceremony, traditions, and language. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples it has been this way since the dawn of time.
To read the full meaning of this year’s theme, you can visit this link here.
We had such a lively event with tunes played by the amazing Phil Bartlett Band. Residents brought their own picnic to the event, and made use of some of the outdoor rugs and bean bags available. AAC made some beanbags using pillows and indigenous prints for the sundowner too.
There was more than enough cultural food and choices of food provided at the sundowner and we supplied ice cold Yurrama water to the community on the evening. The weather was beautiful, and everyone seemed to be having an incredible time. There was a showcase of Aboriginal History and Culture on display
There was so much fun to be had as Make Up by Zara painted faces and arms, children played the oversized games on the mats, arts and crafts, giveaways and challenges and were brave enough to hold our slithery friends at the event, which ended at 7pm.
Photo credit: Elly Lukale.
We would like to thank all our community partners for making this event so successful this year; Shire of Ashburton, IBN Corporation, Gumala Aboriginal Corporation, Tom Price Youth Support Association, Nintirri Centre, Tom Price Arts Hub and Tom Price Senior High School.
We would like to especially thank our AAC staff who not only celebrated the event, but helped to transport and set up equipment, and stayed long past the end of the event to pack up all the supplies, take down gazebos and transport all the equipment back to site. You don’t see such dedication all the time, and we are forever grateful for the role each person performs, it definitely does not go unnoticed.
AAC Staff at the Heal Country Sundowner
Photo credit: Elly Lukale.