Indigenous Education
Reconciliation Week
This week, we celebrated Reconciliation Week! Reconciliation Week is a week to learn about and appreciate First Nation's People's culture and history and a time to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia.
We had a wonderful commissioning ceremony for our staff and grade 6 students to start the week. This commissioning ceremony was to be a FIRE Carrier. At St Joseph's, we became a FIRE Carrier school last year. FIRE stands for (Friends Igniting Reconciliation through Education). The program promotes respect, fairness and inclusion for Aboriginal people. To be a FIRE Carrier is to exercise a critical leadership role in the school community. FIRE carriers are students and teachers who share a passion for learning about Aboriginal culture and history and are committed to sharing this knowledge and promoting reconciliation within and beyond the school community.
Here are some beautiful photos from our ceremonies. We welcome Jack Grayling and Eli Beddoes as our Fire carrier leaders of 2024. Jack and Eli developed a plan for all our great activities this week for Reconciliation Week!
On Thursday, we had a wonderful Indigenous Art Workshop with Dr Jenny Murray-Jones and Thelma Asbury, Yorta Yorta/Baraparapa women. Students learned about Jenny and Thelma's family and learned about their grandmother Mollie.
Jenny spoke about her artwork and creations. She talked to the students about different types of Indigenous art. Guided by her practice, Jenny showed students various Aboriginal symbols and how they can be used to decorate leaves and gum nuts. Here are the beautiful pieces that the students designed! We are really proud of them! We have created a display at school to showcase them.
On Thursday, we also held a fundraiser for The Opening the Doors Foundation, which supports First Nations students across Victoria in attending the school of their choice with all necessary supplies. It also supports the costs of formative school experiences such as camps and excursions. It is the only First Nations organisation supporting children throughout their 13-year educational journey.
To support this, we asked the students to donate gold coins and wear clothes in colour from the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander Flag or clothes that included Indigenous artwork. We are pleased to announce that we raised $127.20. We are so grateful and appreciative of your donations.
We got the students to stand in their colours to create the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Flags!
Mrs Asbury shares her story of her Grandmother Mollie
My grandmother Mollie Murray was born at Cummeragunja on the New South Wales side of the Murray River above Echuca.
Her mother, my great grandmother, was Lylla Atkinson, the daughter of a Wiradjari woman and Johnny Atkinson, a Yorta Yorta man. My great-grandfather Bill Murray decided to move the family to a better place and was able to buy a property at Kyalite on the Wakool River. He was a Gun Shearer and worked at various sheep stations around the district. They lived there for a short time and the children went to school in a little one room schoolhouse near the river.
Unfortunately, in New South Wales, Aboriginal children were only allowed to go to school if the other parents approved so some members of my grandmother’s family were precluded from attending. My great Uncle Besley, who was Dad’s cousin, was not allowed into the local school and had to go and live with his grandmother at Lake Boga so that he could attend school in Victoria where schools were open to all.
During the time the family lived at Balranald, Molly and her sister Bessie were taken away by an Aboriginal Protections woman, Alice Lowe. She went around the cattle/sheep stations, looking for girls to send to Cootamundra Girls Training Home to be trained as domestic servants.
After their training, Mollie and Bessie went to work for a doctor in Echuca. There, Mollie met Steve Jones, my grandfather. According to records, they married in Richmond just after coming to Melbourne where Steve worked as a chauffeur. Mollie and Steve had two children in quick succession, Audrey in 1926 and Norman (my dad) in 1927.
Even though life was tough for Aboriginal people in those days, we need to move on and work together towards Reconciliation.