Port Macquarie Family Fun Day
From inland to the coast, wherever you looked you would’ve found our program staff and kids celebrating NAIDOC Week. On July 6th, our Family Referral Service Mid North Coast team celebrated NAIDOC Week at the Port Macquarie Family Fun Day, featuring dancing, music, language circles and more. Our FRS MNC team attended with badges, bags, stickers and more handy at their table as they mingled and participated in the day’s events.
Check out some images from our FRS MNC team and the day’s festivities:
Pathfinders Family and Disability service teams celebrating NAIDOC week in Tamworth and Quirindi
NAIDOC Week might’ve passed this year, but many of our programs, staff and kids are still reminiscing on how great it was to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, culture and achievements throughout the region.
Our Family Referral Service (now Family Connect and Support) team in Tamworth also attended the Family Fun Day at Bicentennial Park. FRS worker, Claire Whyte, said it was a fantastic day at the NAIDOC Week celebration. The team hosted their usual activities of cupcake decorating and rock art for the children, and they were both quite a hit! They went through 700 to 800 cupcakes, 3 kilos of icing and about 7 kilos of rocks!
The FRS Tamworth team also attended the Qurinidi Family Fun Day on the Monday, with their cupcakes and rocks in tow.
Check out some images from our FRS team of both day’s festivities:
Our languages matter
The Tamworth Regional Council had the following to say about the NAIDOC week events in Tamworth:
NAIDOC Celebrations are held across Australia each July to celebrate the culture, history and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
In 2017, the theme for NAIDOC Week was ‘’Our Languages Matter”. Languages are the breath of life for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. For tens of thousands of years, they have played a unique and essential role in cultural identity, linking people to their land and water and in the transmission of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history, spirituality and rites, through story and song.
NAIDOC Week celebrations assist to build a harmonious community based on respect, responsibility, the preservation and value of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identity whilst also promoting reconciliation and unity.
It is the ideal time to consider how we can celebrate the rich culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the Tamworth community, in particular our local Kamilaroi/Gomeroi culture.
The NAIDOC Week Committee of the Tamworth has partnered with the Tamworth and Armidale Aboriginal Children’s Services, the Tamworth Local Aboriginal Lands Council, Joblink Plus, Indigenous Employment Strategy and Tamworth Regional Council to host the NAIDOC Awards @ the Park this year in conjunction with the Family Fun Day, following the NAIDOC March.
The committee believes through highlighting and recognising local achievers, we can celebrate our talents and strengths as a community and promote the positive things Aboriginal people contribute to our community and beyond. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people contribute to the Tamworth and wider community through a number of different ways including: music, art, culture, community, education, environment, sport, employment and politics.
