NAIDOC Week celebrates and recognises the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
It is an opportunity for all Australians to learn about First Nations cultures and histories and participate in celebrations of the oldest, continuous living cultures on Earth.
This year's theme is Get up! Stand up! Show up! What does this mean? We are being asked to make a shift from being passive bystanders to active participants towards changing the gap.
From the NAIDOC website – ‘We all must continue to Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! for systemic change and keep rallying around our mob, our Elders, our communities.
Whether it’s seeking proper environmental, cultural and heritage protections, Constitutional change, a comprehensive process of truth-telling, working towards treaties, or calling out racism—we must do it together.
It must be a genuine commitment by all of us to Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! and support and secure institutional, structural, collaborative, and cooperative reforms.
It’s also time to celebrate the many who have driven and led change in our communities over generations—they have been the heroes and champions of change, of equal rights and even basic human rights.
Getting Up, Standing Up, and Showing Up can take many forms.
We need to move beyond just acknowledgement, good intentions, empty words and promises, and hollow commitments. Enough is enough.’
At KDH we too want to Get Up! Stand Up! Show up! We are committed to the whole of KDH being a place where every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander reports we are a welcoming and inclusive space where Aboriginal history, culture, language, family and community are acknowledged and respected in every aspect of their care and work at KDH. Every staff member, attending medical staff, student and volunteer has an important role in making this change happen.
This week during NAIDOC week we will be sharing information that involves some action on your part. Please take the time to read and take up the challenge of exploring how you can be more informed and to reflect on how our organisation and each of us individually can make genuine changes.
Challenge 1. Learn a little about Taungurung Language and share it with others.
Wa wa (hello) in Taungurung… and wumindjika (welcome) to KDH. There is a free Taungurung Language App on the Appstore. It contains 194 professionally recorded entries with corresponding images and words. The app was created with support from VACL, Miromaa Aboriginal Language and Technology Centre, Buxton Primary School, and Taungurung Elder and Language expert Aunty Lee Healy.
If you have an iphone download the app and share it with your colleagues, family and friends. Why not welcome others in Taungurung language this week.
Wa wa – hello, hi
Gabimele – greetings
Wumindjika – greetings
Dwagin - goodbye
The Taungurung Land and Water Corporation website also contains a health related conversation. You can find this on https://taungurung.com.au/language/