Moving Forward Together in Aboriginal Women's Health: - Theses ...

Moving Forward TogetherJanet Kellycommunity. In a central space was a large map of Indigenous Australia withstudent’s names pinned to specific communities of origin. She explained thesignificance of the map and the posters;Before I put the map of Aboriginal places on the wall no one spoke muchabout where they came from. Then once I put it up there and my daughterand I put where we came from others put up where they are from. A lot ofthe kids are fair and did not talk much about their heritage. They gotinterested and went home and asked more about it. I use my daughter as atool; the other kids look to her as a role model. I missed out on my ownculture and now I am making up for it, sharing information, taking aboutfamily and working at connections. We talk about family and culture a lot.I am passionate about it, I encourage them. I say you are Aboriginal andit is Ok to be proud of it. There is nothing to be ashamed of, beingAboriginal. It is about identity and respect.Some of the parents didn’t want their kids to identify as Aboriginal, butnow the kids wander into the AEW room here with the other kids. Theyare choosing to identify themselves as Aboriginal. People areacknowledging it now and not being ashamed. This is a big change fromwhen I was young.The school is really supportive. We celebrate NAIDOC week andreconciliation week. I work with the ESL (English as Second Language)teacher and the Aboriginal students together. We share cultural stuff andwrite for the school magazine. Now with excursions a lot of non-Aboriginal kids want to come which is great for reconciliation. They comein the room here too, and they are all welcome. The Nunga kids are notallowed to be discriminating either; I won’t let them be. I tell them totreat the others as they would like to be treated themselves (HS I1).Each of the times I visited the Aboriginal Education Worker I observed diversegroups of students speaking with her, calling out or smiling and waving to her.One of the non-Aboriginal co-researchers noted that different youngAboriginal people reacted differently in relation to their Aboriginality. Shesaid;272