YARNING CIRCLE

Since establishing the Yarning Circle in 2020, the group has evolved to become an exciting element of the growth and direction of the whole school. Whilst we farewell two of our founding members, we have gained new members to join in celebrating and exploring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture and identity in the KSC community.

Morgan and Caitlyn Cameron became the first in their family to graduate Year 12 and the first Indigenous students to graduate from KSC since 2018. On October 18 Ms Dauphin, Ms Reymers and Ms Kennedy were invited by the Cameron family to attend the graduation of all Year 12 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from Gippsland in Morwell. It was an honour to attend and listen to the esteemed keynote speakers who are change-makers in their fields, inspiring young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to take up their space and power at school. Morgan and Caitlyn have pledged to return to KSC to support our growing Yarning Circle.

This year in May we travelled to Morwell for the Deadly Thinking Youth workshop, facilitated by Michelle Debenham from Wellways Australia and VACCA. Students connected with AJ Williams, who took the group through sessions about various aspects of their mental health and how to grow stronger in their Indigenous identities.

During the KSC NAIDOC Week in August, we had Kurnai women Julie Dow and our former KESO, Linda Mullett who took us through the artwork that will feature in the new buildings, as well as Julie's portfolio of work. We also 'met' with students from the Yiyili Aboriginal Community School in the Kimberley, Western Australia. Lisa Cowgill, who has worked with us here at KSC has been at Yiyili since the start of 2021 and is preparing to head home after two years of teaching in this amazing community. It was wonderful for our students who know Lisa to connect with her and the students she has who live on Country and have a lot of their culture represented in their schooling experience. We also had the opportunity to craft questions for our Principal and Assistant Principal and the interviews were conducted on the last day of the week, in the spirit of the self-determination.

In October the Gippsland chapter of AIME (Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience) hosted its last Program Day of the year and we headed over with our fabulous integration aide, Amy Gallagher to Federation University to meet the Mentors and students from Lowanna. The group spent the day learning about culture, pathways and ‘Failure Time’. AIME supports Indigenous students staying at school until they have a tertiary or trade pathway, with in-school Tutor Squads delivered by trained Mentors and an annual Year 10 Walk Beside Us Camp.

In our last meeting of the year, we met with AJ again on Zoom for a Yarn and had a close up look of his amazing awards from this year. Awards for the work he has set up and continued in the community, including Mental Health First Aid training and the alumni awards from Victoria University and Swinburne University. AJ was the first person to win both the Spirit of VU award AND the VU Professional Achievement award, making university history, so we were able to congratulate him as a group. It has been wonderful to connect with this incredible person and have him support the Yarning Circle initiative as it goes from strength to strength.