This year’s theme for Reconciliation Week is ‘Don’t Keep History a Mystery: Learn. Share. Grow.’ It invites us to learn more deeply about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and histories, to share that knowledge and grow as a community here in Tweed and to contribute to our growth as a nation.
Historical acceptance is one of five dimensions that together represent a comprehensive picture of reconciliation, according to Reconciliation Australia. Accepting the truth of the past, comes first, and is fundamental to achieving progress in the other four dimensions – equality and equity, unity, race relations and integrity in our institutions and organisations.
This year a committee from 3 local community organisations The Family Centre, 3SA (Third Sector Australia includes OTCP), and New Horizons and our local government Tweed Shire Council came together to run a movie event and panel afterwards. Each has made a commitment to Reconciliation and have past, current or new Reconciliation Action Plans. Coming together as a group is an important part of our commitment, as through collective action can we consolidate and bring about broader change.
A Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) is a strategic document that supports an organisation’s business or operational plan. It includes practical actions that will drive an organisation’s contribution to reconciliation both internally and in the communities in which it operates.
In the beautifully written and sung words of the young people from Kingscliff High School, whose video “Standing as One”produced and directed by One Vision, was viewed as a short, prior to the movie, “to understand the future we must look at the past”.
The movie we screened, Sweet Country, confronts us with some hard and complex truths about slavery, sexual violence and Aboriginal resistance to exploitation and land seizure, that until now have been largely unacknowledged on the big screen. It’s not a local story, but it could be. The audience was made up of a diverse audience of staff and stakeholders from our organisations and attended by our Mayor Katie Milne, numerous Councillors, and members of Aboriginal Advisory Committees from Tweed Shire Council and The Family Centre. READ MORE
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