Festival director Paul Thompson believes it’s crucial for more schools to encourage an understanding of Australian Indigenous culture. “We need to recognise it in the Australian curriculum,” he asserts. “It needs to be throughout primary schools and not just in high school. It’s not just about Aboriginal art and talking about eating witchetty grubs, but actually teaching authentic cultural differences; it’s about teaching our kids that these people were the first Australians, recognising that and going from there. We’ve found that our program works so well and we’ve had so much trouble trying to raise funds for it, so that’s a big problem and a question that we need to ask politicians.”
Thompson has been teaching at Penbank/Woodleigh School (Woodleigh merged with Penbank at the beginning of this year) for 11 years and regards the growth of the Wugularr partnership as a defining achievement. “In 2007, one of our teachers took a position up in the Wugularr School, which is in Beswick in the Northern Territory. From that, we were able to connect with their community and their kids at the Wugularr School.
“The whole idea of this program is that we share our cultures and our community and we learn about each other’s differences in terms of not just skin colour, not just where we live, but everything to do with merging culture and creativity and sport. Being so young, our kids are sort of entering a different world with no prejudice, no judgement, and very mutual respect… kids are just kids and they just play and simply grow up together. It’s working beautifully.”
Thompson asserts that the kids in Beswick live very different lives to the kids on the Mornington Peninsula: “They come down and experience what we do and join in the after-school activities such as tennis and basketball, singing and music; from being immersed in that, they can go back to their communities and really make a comparison to it,” says Thompson. “And our kids, when we go up there, we notice things that they do differently. They walk softly; they don’t rush. Eye contact is very different; we’re used to looking people in the eye. They don’t mind silence, whereas we feel we have to fill silence with words. Subtle stuff like that.”
The Beswick (aka Wugularr) community reside on the south western corner of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, on the traditional land of the Jawoyn people. Wugularr is home to people from the language groups of Jawoyn, Dalabon, Rembarrnga, Mialli and Rittharngu/Wagalak. “The kids have learned different words, sayings and ways of greeting people,” Thompson enthuses. “Our children were taught very quickly that they never say goodbye; they always say, ‘Boh boh,’ and that means ‘Til next time,’ It’s beautiful. They learn that and different ways of approaching people and different ways of speaking to people. It’s very respectful and we’ve got a lot to learn from them.”
Michael Farrah’s Indigenous Hip Hop Projects is an inspiring program that encourages young people in the Indigenous community to seize their opportunities. “Michael worked with The Billabong Boyz and got them to a stage where they had written a song, a hip hop track, and put together a show that goes with it,” Thompson enthuses. “Indigenous Hip Hop Projects funded that act to come down, rehearse and be involved with Between the Bays. It’s amazing what they’re doing.”
BY CHRISTINE LAN
