A KAMILAROI elder has called for communities and cultures to walk together as the region acknowledges National Reconciliation Week.
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A strong crowd rolled-up to the Coledale community centre on Monday morning in honour of the country-wide week dedicated to fostering better relationships between the wider Australian and Indigenous communities.
Local elder Uncle Neville Sampson said it was a very special day and he wanted to see reconciliation happen in his time.
“We don’t want to be walking a divided road,” he said.
“We want to walk a straight and narrow road, hand-in-hand.”
The event was hosted by Tamworth Family Support Service (TFSS) and featured cultural performances by the Wetsdale Gems and the Peel High dancers.
The elder gave the welcome to country and shared his thoughts on the way forward.
“The message I really wanted to get across … is that to make reconciliation happen, we, ourselves, the Aboriginal people have got to reconcile first,” he said.
“If we don’t reconcile, it’ll never happen.
“If we can then reconcile ourselves and then work with the non-Aboriginals it’ll happen.”
He said the mission was about coming together.
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“I think myself now, it’s really starting to happen, we’re starting to move forward and that’s what I want,” he said.
TFSS staff were impressed with the turnout for the Monday-morning event and quality coordinator Donella Urquhart said acknowledging the week was a part of the organisation’s Reconciliation Action Plan.
We don’t want to be walking a divided road we want to walk a straight and narrow road, hand-in-hand.
- Uncle Neville Sampson
“It’s about joining in with other services and community and bringing forward knowledge about, historically, about what’s happened Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia and particularly in this area,” she said.
“And to join together to celebrate how far we’ve come.”
Ms Urquhart said TFSS’s action plan also included increasing Aboriginal staff and rolling-out cultural awareness for its employees.
“The main thing is the importance of celebrating how far we’ve come and to share the knowledge and to appreciate each other’s culture,” she said. Reconciliation week’s theme is: “don’t let history be a mystery”.