WIMMERA people have marked National Reconciliation Week with a series of events to celebrate Indigenous resilience and survival.
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Federation University hosted an Aboriginal elders and community get-together, a smoking ceremony and a short film festival at its Horsham campus on Wednesday.
A community lunch was also part of the day.
The theme for the week this year is ‘Our History, Our Story and Our Future’.
The week started on Friday, which marked the 49th anniversary of the 1967 referendum that recognised Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the national census.
The week continues until Friday this week, the anniversary of the 1992 landmark High Court ‘Mabo’ decision that paved the way for land rights.
The university’s Wimmera campus head Geoff Lord said the day was about understanding and recognising Aboriginal culture.
“Reconciliation is not about Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders coming to understand Western culture, it’s the other way round,” he said. “It’s about the settlement culture coming to understand Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.
“National Reconciliation Week marks the milestones made in European law towards accepting and understanding Aboriginal culture.”
Mr Lord said he grew up at a time where people were taught Australia was vacant before settlement.
He said he was proud to live in a country with three official flags.
“It’s important to grasp the simple concept that the flag Cathy Freeman draped around herself at the Olympics and the Torres Strait Islander flag are all official flags of our nation, and we should be proud of that,” he said
Wotjobaluk elder Aunty Nancy Harrison said the week was about celebrating Aboriginal culture and acknowledging the sorrows of the past, especially the stolen generation.
Aunty Harrison said events like reconciliation week go a long way to healing past wounds.
She said nothing could fix what was done in the past, but reconciliation was about acknowledgement and moving forward.
“Kevin Rudd did the apology and we have this celebration and it’s important,” she said.
“Having the celebration does help and we’ve got people helping those still suffering, so hopefully they shouldn’t suffer any more.
“Though nothing in the world truly takes the suffering away from those who were stolen.”
Aunty Harrison said she remembered seeing children being taken away and visiting friends in orphanages in the area when she was a young girl.
“I was only a little girl myself and I knew people who were taken,” she said.
“It was horribly wrong what happened in Aboriginal communities up north, in the territory and in South Australia – it happened everywhere.”