YWCA Canberra Clubhouse partnered with Australian Red Cross to engage 20 students from Caroline Chisholm School and Richardson Primary School to participate in the NSW Reconciliation Council Schools Reconciliation Challenge.
The Schools Reconciliation Challenge
The Schools Reconciliation Challenge is an annual art and writing competition for young people across NSW and the ACT. It is one way for students to learn about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia and contribute positively to Australian society, while meeting the objectives of their learning plans.
This program will focus on personal discovery of self and culture, learning about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, and creating art work and/or a piece of writing that responds to reconciliation and the School’s Reconciliation Challenge theme Our Voices, Our Future.
Our Voices, Our Future is about celebrating the voices of young people and empowering students to recognise that their voices matter. Young people are our future and every young person has a unique and important role to play in contributing their voices to reconciliation.
Our Voices, Our Future is also about acknowledging and valuing the place of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples voices and perspectives within Australia’s national story and reconciliation journey. It is about recognising the diversity and dynamism of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and contributions; celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages and knowledges and appreciating the importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander self-determination and self-representation.
It is about recognising some of the ways in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices have been ignored or misrepresented in the past, and about creating a rightful place for the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to be actively listened to – now and into the future.
This theme explores the importance of coming together and engaging in conversations and collaborations that build mutual respect, trust and understanding. It is about listening, speaking up and working together to create a better future.
Through exploration of this theme students will develop their understanding of the rich diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices and perspectives and the importance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander self-determination and self-representation in directing processes of reconciliation.
Workshops
Workshops were be facilitated by YWCA Canberra Clubhouse, Adam Shipp from Yuraby, and Kirli Saunders from Red Room Poetry. Workshops objectives include:
- Increase knowledge and understanding of Aboriginal culture through the theme, Our Voices, Our Future
- Promote Cultural sharing and Reconciliation between Indigenous and Non-Indigenous communities in the ACT
- Encourage student participation to learn, discuss, contemplate and express themselves in art or writing.
- Promote entry to the Schools Reconciliation Challenge
Exhibition
There is be an exhibition of the award-winning entries of the Schools Reconciliation Challenge hosted by the Australian National Gallery and will be held at the Fitters Workshop form 12 – 14 November 2018.