Naidoc Week

This week is NAIDOC Week, a time to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC is celebrated not only in indigenous communities, but by Australians from all walks of life. 

NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee’. This committee was once responsible for organising national activities during NAIDOC Week and its acronym has since become the name of the week itself. 

The theme for 2020 is Always Was, Always Will Be.

Always Was, Always Will Be, recognises that First Nations people have occupied and cared for this continent for over 65,000 years. This country was criss-crossed by generations of brilliant Nations. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were Australia’s first explorers, first navigators, first engineers, first farmers, first botanists, first scientists, first diplomats, first astronomers and first artists. Australia has the world’s oldest oral stories. The First Peoples engraved the world’s first maps, made the earliest paintings of ceremony and invented unique technologies. They built and engineered structures - structures on Earth - predating well-known sites such as the Egyptian Pyramids and Stonehenge.

Always Was, Always Will Be. acknowledges that hundreds of Nations and our cultures covered this continent. All were managing the land - the biggest estate on earth - to sustainably provide for their future. NAIDOC Week 2020 acknowledges and celebrates that our nation’s story didn’t begin with documented European contact whether in 1770 or 1606 - with the arrival of the Dutch on the western coast of the Cape York Peninsula.

It’s about seeing, hearing and learning the First Nations’ 65,000+ year history of this country - which is Australian history. We want all Australians to celebrate that we have the oldest continuing cultures on the planet and to recognise that our sovereignty was never ceded.

Always Was, Always Will Be.

(From: https://www.naidoc.org.au/about/naidoc-week)

Let us pray,

Loving God, who supports and allows everything to live,

Bless this country, Australia, and all people who live here.

We ask you to bless all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

We thank you for their ongoing and eternal influence upon this country, having been the Indigenous voice for many tens of thousands of years, and being an ongoing voice of know-how and innovation in agriculture, science, art, music, and in technical, ecological and medicinal fields.

Help us to listen to, respect and appreciate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal people. Thank you for opportunities all around us to learn the ways of our nation’s first peoples, which are precious and important to all life in this Country.

For those of us with colonial origins, forgive us for our ignorance. 

But however much we know, or don’t know, about the Aboriginal world that intersects with ours, may we know your love and acceptance, just as our Aboriginal sisters and brothers know your love and acceptance.

May we work for a shared future.

Amen

(From:https://stkildaunitingchurch.org.au/our-prayers/prayer-for-naidoc-week-2019)