ATSI Group Report

On Wed 28 June, one of our ATSI Group students, Natasha Rinderhagen-Douglas, attended a Youth Culture Camp Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth aged 14-25 years, run by the Mullum Mullum Indigenous Gathering Place. The youth camp was filled with campsite activities, wellbeing yarns, cultural activities and much more!

On the school holidays, I had an awesome opportunity to participate in an Aboriginal Youth Camp in Anglesea. We took a coach from Mullum Mullum Gathering Place in Ringwood at 8:00 am. The drive took about 2 hours, the traffic along the way near the city was really busy as well.

When we got to the campsite in Anglesea, we unloaded the coach and were assigned cabins. Our first activity was using a map and radio to find yellow markers found around the campgrounds. We had some lunch and got to settle in our cabins for a while, which allowed us to get to know our cabin mates.

The next day we did some more activities, including painting on some boomerangs and archery. In archery I managed to get a bullseye after 4 shots. Our lunch was wraps with whatever we wanted to put in them, they were really delicious.

On the last day we had a session dedicated to mental health in the Aboriginal community, and we had talks about youth crime rates as well. Each of the participants received a booklet to fill out some of the activities, one of the pages had an ‘about me’ activity which included which mob we come from and what our dreams and aspirations are. In the evening after dinner I played Uno with my new friends and so many people joined.

I made a lot of new friends during the camp, and I still keep in contact with them. I’m so happy that I got the opportunity to attend the Aboriginal Youth Camp and I would love to go to another one! 

Natasha Rinderhagen-Douglas, Year 9