THE Swan Hill community on Friday has a unique opportunity to come together, as NAIDOC Week culminates with a street parade and awards ceremony.
And First Peoples’ Assembly member Jacinta Chaplin is inviting everyone to share the spirit of this year’s NAIDOC theme – Heal Country!
Ms Chaplin said her message to non-Indigenous people was to “come along, celebrate and ask questions”.
“We’re one people, even if we have different cultures and backgrounds,” she said.
This week’s activities began with an opening ceremony on Monday, where attendees could write their name on a leaf on a healing tree.
On Tuesday there was a three-on-three basketball competition organised by the Department of Justice, which focused on engaging young people and their friends.
A sound and light show at the Pioneer Settlement, Welcome Baby to Country session and an Elders Day luncheon were also popular events.
The theme Heal Country! has many interpretations, but Ms Chaplin, who works with both Mallee District Aboriginal Services and Swan Hill Rural City Council, said it was about the community coming together.
“It’s about having a healthy and happy country, and unity – coming together,” the proud Wadi Wadi woman said.
“Not just inclusion, but allowing Aboriginal people to be more involved in decision making, appropriate to our culture.”
The national NAIDOC committee said the term Country was broader than the English meaning.
“It is more than a place,” they explain on their website.
“When we talk about Country it is spoken of like a person. Country is inherent to our identity.”
The street parade will start at 12.30pm at the corner of Campbell and McCrae streets, and proceed to the Clock Tower, singing the Future National Anthem, before the Service Expo and Awards Ceremony.
“The awards ceremony will celebrate the mainstream achievements as well as broader achievements,” Ms Chaplin said.
“It’s to help build up ourselves and the community.”
NAIDOC Week is only seven days in the nation’s year but it celebrates more than 65,000 years of First Nations contributions.
Swan Hill – or Matakupaat (“place of the platypus”) as it was originally known in the Wamba Wamba language – is understood to have been inhabited for at least 9000 years.
