NAIDOC Week

Last week, St Michael’s school held their NAIDOC celebrations for 2023 and the theme was ‘FOR OUR ELDERS’.  

Manilla Community Preschool and Manilla Early Learning Centre accepted our invitation and joined us in our NAIDOC celebrations. 

Our NAIDOC day commenced with a Liturgy followed by a Welcome to Country by Len Waters, accompanied by Buddy Knox. The children, staff and guests enjoyed the stories and songs that they performed. 

The students then got to start their fun filled, cultural activities, which included damper tasting, braiding and beading, rock art, cultural colouring, pasta necklace making and finishing off with NAIDOC education and gathering around the yarning mat to hear a story.  The children all received a tote bag of goodies to continue enjoying the celebrations at home.

We finished off our NAIDOC 2023 celebrations with a friendly touch football game between our Yr 5/6 students vs staff and parents, whereby staff and parents took the victory with a 6-2 win. Thank you to everyone who participated in this event.

We would like to thank Len and Buddy for their time and cultural knowledge.  We would also like to thank the Manilla Community Preschool, Manilla Learning Centre and the parents and guests who joined us in our celebrations.  A special thanks to Dian Allan for attending our day as an honoured guest.

Lastly, we would like to thank the teachers and staff for their support and their eagerness to learn more about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Cultures.