Aboriginal Waterways Assessment program
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38 <strong>Aboriginal</strong> <strong>Waterways</strong> <strong>Assessment</strong> — Part B The <strong>program</strong><br />
The Dharriwaa Elders Group brought<br />
together people who had lived all<br />
their lives around Walgett, people<br />
who had moved to Walgett in their<br />
adult years and people who had lived<br />
there through to their early adulthood,<br />
then moved away. Each had a piece<br />
of Walgett’s history and the stories of<br />
the rivers, and the conversations on<br />
Country brought out that knowledge.<br />
With the Dhudhuroa and Waywurru<br />
Nations of the Alps, most of the team<br />
were city residents who had not<br />
spent much time in their Country. Two<br />
members of the team who knew the<br />
Country well were able to share their<br />
knowledge.<br />
As the team travelled up and down the<br />
Ovens and Kiewa valleys, they gathered<br />
knowledge from the research team of<br />
how the valleys had been used since<br />
occupation. This helped them understand<br />
the condition of the rivers, and they<br />
could then imagine how the places<br />
might have been used traditionally:<br />
‘I really enjoyed it today. I got a<br />
better understanding of how events<br />
like the dredging have affected the<br />
river. And I can visualise how the<br />
last place wouldn’t have been a<br />
camping site, because the water<br />
wasn’t flowing fast enough.’<br />
When asked what they had got out<br />
of the week, every member of this<br />
assessment team said:<br />
‘I’ve got more connected to<br />
my Country.’<br />
Using the assessment process<br />
brings the community together<br />
In Deniliquin, there were big<br />
differences in knowledge between<br />
older and younger people, and longterm<br />
residents and newer arrivals.<br />
Discussing ratings together would<br />
have brought attention to differences<br />
in experience, in particular the view<br />
of some that younger members of<br />
the team were listening more to their<br />
Elders than others.<br />
The research team listened to<br />
concerns, expressed individually, of<br />
differing life experience of places.<br />
As the week progressed, the older<br />
and middle-aged men began to speak<br />
about these differences. Inappropriate<br />
behaviour from the younger men (not<br />
filling in assessment sheets seriously,<br />
being abusive of older men) provided<br />
the spark for this, and the reflection<br />
sessions provided a place to talk<br />
about this.<br />
Ronald Hughes Dhudhuroa Nation,<br />
in Dhudhuroa Yaitmaithang<br />
Country, Falls Creek, Victoria<br />
(photo by Ipshita Mondal, MDBA)