Reconciliation Action Plan News 

Mrs Bridget Jenkins 

Opportunities with the Community – Celebrate RAP Progress

 

SVC Reconciliation Statement

Our faith and traditions call St Virgil’s College to build an inclusive community where Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people can walk hand in hand to recognise past hurt, celebrate our shared humanity and build a better, more just and reconciled society.

 

We commit to building relationships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities that are built on mutual respect, trust and inclusiveness. We value these relationships and strive to create empowering opportunities to learn and walk together. One of the most important and effective groups of people that help us to advance reconciliation at St Virgil’s is our Reconciliation Action Plan Working Group, which includes staff from both campuses comprising of classroom teachers, Learning Support Officers, Maintenance, Administration and Leadership. We are also fortunate to have Aboriginal community members, students and parents working alongside us and guiding us on our Reconciliation journey, helping us to create and implement great ideas but also to review and address the things that have gone wrong in our history.

 

Uncle Rodney Dillon is a palawa pakana Elder, activist, teacher and mentor.  He currently works as the Indigenous Rights Advisor for Amnesty International Australia and was instrumental in the purchase and protection of Murrayfield sheep station on Bruny Island where we enjoyed our Reconciliation Camp last October. Uncle Rodney helped explain the concept of Treaty to all our senior students in the lead up to our Treaty Football Match.

 

Uncle Rodney Dillon andJamie Graham Blair
Uncle Rodney Dillon andJamie Graham Blair

 

Rob Anders is a palawa pakana man and works as a Senior Technical Officer in the school of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences at the University of Tasmania. As a member of our RAP Working Group, he has helped proof, draft and advise on much of our reconciliation documentation. He has also worked with us in ceremonies and events and provided valuable cultural perspectives during professional learnings for staff.

 

Trent Prouse is a former student of SVC (2011) and works as a Field Officer in National Parks. As a proud palawa pakana man he works also as a cultural practitioner and mentor for all our students but particularly the Aboriginal boys, helping Bushy with the Pathways Programmes and accompanying us on camps and excursions.

 

Jamie Graham Blair is a proud trawlwoolway and plangermaireener pakana man studying Ecology and Marine Science at UTAS. Jamie is an activist, writer and photographer who has worked closely with us to create the tunapri makuminya Project and to co-create many reconciliation initiatives across both campuses in curriculum, well-being and professional learning.

 

We aspire to create opportunities for Aboriginal students, parents and staff to remain connected to the College, even after they finish their formal studies here, and very much value the unique perspectives, experiences and wisdom that our Aboriginal students and their families bring to our RAP Working Group. We are incredibly privileged and thankful to have such welcoming and generous Aboriginal friends and family to learn from and to grow with so that we can continue to walk together on a path of reconciliation that we want to keep making stronger and stronger.