Our Social Justice Work

Giving back to our community

As part of our ethical cultural practice of reciprocity we regularly volunteer our time and resources to give back to the people, communities and country from which our cultural knowledge comes.

"Sustaining a strong cultural identity is a key component of Social and Emotional Wellbeing, an Indigenous Australian framework of health. Here, an identity can be cultivated and maintained through participating in cultural events and developing a connection to family, community and traditional lands. The strengthening of culture serves to build resilience and positive coping mechanisms facilitating life balance and protecting against adverse life experiences including ‘the impact of history in trauma and loss’. This includes the fostering of effective responses to stigma, discrimination and the ongoing impacts of colonisation. Identifying and engaging in Indigenous cultures has been linked with enhanced self-assessed health, improved educational and employment outcomes, and greater life satisfaction." (Shepherd, Delgado, Sherwood, Paradies in BMC Public Health. 2018)

We have been offering cultural connection activities for members of our Wailwaan, Coonamble community since 2014 when we organised the first ever Aboriginal Corroborree (dancing and ceremonial event) held within the town boundaries since invasion.  We had around 40 local children dancing and over 200 local Aboriginal community members involved.  Since then we have been working with the families in an ongoing way. We mentor the young people & families by regularly inviting the youth to practice Aboriginal dance with us and perform at different gigs and cultural events.

When we take youth to dance with us we also take the young people out on country to connect with our sites of significance, local Elders & cultural knowledge holders and teach the youth & families our languages, bush tucker & medicines, stories and more! We often also take the youth for holiday type activities (such as visiting a theme park or the beach) as many of the families are in significant poverty and haven’t had such opportunities before.