Koorie Education
& Engagement
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day
Today is Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day and is Australia's national day dedicated to celebrating the strengths and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.
The theme for this year's celebration is ‘Little Voices, Loud Future’. The theme is why we chose today to officially launch our basketball and mixed sports interschool sports uniforms. The change to uniforms was an idea driven by Marley Bartlett, a Year 11 student who is a proud Wiradjuri woman. It is fitting that today, celebrating Aboriginal voices and futures, that we share a project that was born from listening to the voice of an Aboriginal student and resulted in school wide involvement and change. Marley will debut these uniforms in a couple of weeks when the EMC Senior Girls Basketball team take the court at the Regional finals. Then, the uniforms will be available for all basketball and mixed sports teams to wear moving forwards.
We are honoured to share the uniforms with our community, designed by Ky-ya Nicholson Ward (@djirringu.art) as an adaptation of her design for our 2024 HPE uniforms. Ky-ya is a young Wurundjeri, Dja Dja Wurrung, Ngurai illum Wurrung, German and Irish artist. She has a connection to one of our students, Marley’s older sister Jenaya, as they travelled to a cultural exchange to Aotearoa earlier this year together. We were so fortunate to be able to work with her on this project and we are grateful for her generosity in sharing her cultural knowledge and artistic talent with us.
Children’s Day has been run annually since 1988; and the date 4 August was historically used to communally celebrate the birthdays of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were taken from their families at a young age, without knowing their birthday – the Stolen Generations.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are born into stories of their family, culture, and Country. They carry with them the songlines of their ancestors and culture, passed down by generations. These children carry with them the weight of history and tradition, but also hold the power to shape their own futures.
At EMC we are beyond proud of the strength of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students who attend or have attended our College. We are proud of who they are now and who they will become, by being connected to their culture. We are grateful for their voices in challenging and supporting us all to contribute to making our school community better, now and into the future.
MARLEY BARTLETT WINS NAIDOC AWARD!
Marley won the NAIDOC 2023 Frankston and Mornington Peninsula Youth award - in recognition of her incredible achievements as an Indigenous young person in the community, sports and her education. A talented footballer including playing in the AFL Victoria Kickstart team from her Next Gen Academy program, a skilled basketballer who was an OG of Koorie Academy Basketball, a participant with Korin Gamadji Institute Athlete and Leadership programs, travels to Richmond for her weekly placement with Melbourne Indigenous Transition School in the Year 7 classroom, and is a leader at EMC in the Koorie space including initiating the revamp of the HPE uniform and sports uniforms to have Indigenous representation. We are SO proud of this strong Wiradjuri woman, and could not think of a more deserving young person to be celebrated this year.
Marley, you inspire us, you teach us, you definitely sass us, but you also challenge us to do better and be better.
Check out @emc_koorie for more updates about NAIDOC week and what our students got up to during the term break!