Foster Secondary College hosted a First Nations day of celebrations last Friday, with a swathe of educational activities aimed at teaching students an understanding for the ongoing culture of the indigenous groups around our area and across our country. Eight local schools (around 600 students) were in attendance, alongside local Traditional Owner groups.
The event was organised by the Marrung (from the Wemba Wemba word for the Murray Cyprus) lead positions from Toora Primary School and Foster Secondary: a Victorian government initiative aimed at supporting indigenous students, providing a compassionate education on indigenous history and issues to non indigenous children, and fostering a welcoming and inclusive learning environment.
Friday’s event began with a smoking ceremony, and showcased a number of traditional practices, with children involved in creating artworks using possum skins, making clap sticks, playing a traditional ball game called Marngrook (a precursor to AFL with direct links to the game's creation), and tasting emu and wallaby sausages, among a wide variety of native foods, including warragul greens, kangaroo curry and lemon myrtle biscuits with strawberry gum cream.
The day closed out with a performance from the talented Secondary College music department, and local Noongar man Ben Yarram on didgeridoo. This event was an incredible opportunity for local children to experience and develop an understanding of and respect for indigenous culture in an engaging and memorable way. We are lucky to have such dedicated people in our schools as the organisers of this event, namely Tika Hicken, Katelyn Ardley, and Rebecca Bone.
But the fun didn't stop there. On Saturday, the event travelled over to Foster Memorial Hall, where over 200 members of the community attended the "Do It Deadly" concert, which showcased local talent, with both the Foster Secondary College Big Band, and Bec's Bonny Boners performing, as well as some top Indigenous musicians, including Bumpy, Squid Nebula, and Amos Roach, son of the late Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter, who came down for the event and to see the recent mural painted of his father on the wall of Foster Secondary's music department. This joyous celebration was a wild success, with attendees laughing and dancing late into the night.
The amount of work, funding, and support needed to hold these events is hard to overstate, and the people organising these occasions are paragons of fellowship within our community. If you haven't attended one of the high school's music events, keep an eye out for the next. Tickets are generally $5-30, and these concerts have a professional level of production. Special thanks to Freeza, Anywise Consulting and Bendigo Bank who all provided funding for the event, along with the Men's Shed, Gippsland Ports, South Gippsland Shire Council, the Lion's Club, and all the community members who freely volunteered their time to help with set up, without which these events would stall and falter long before they came into fruition. Zavier Evans
