As part of this year’s Reconciliation Week, Kangan Institute’s Gunung-Willam-Balluk Indigenous Education Centre at Broadmeadows will unveil a tribute to Uncle Norm Hunter, acknowledging the spirit of this Wonga man and respected elder of the Gunung-Willam-Balluk and Ngurangeeta.
Centre co-ordinator Lin Yow Yeh said Uncle Norm Hunter was a visionary who imagined the Kangan Institute learning centre as a place where his people and Ngammaitjis could come together with a sense of mutual respect and understanding in practical reconciliation.
“Uncle Norm shared his identity and cultural ways, his totems, lore, and his spiritual connection to Mother Earth,” Mr Yow Yeh said.
“His footprints are maps that he left for us to follow and are a strong, proud and rich legacy for us to respect.”
Reconciliation Week starts each year just after Sorry Day on May 26. The first such ‘week’ was in 1998, a year after the tabling of the
Bringing them Home report when the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission handed down its findings into the forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.
Let’s Walk the Talk is the theme of this year’s National Reconciliation Week, which runs from May 27 to June 3.
The Gunung-Willam-Balluk Indigenous Education Centre will be a central venue for local events.
The education centre will celebrate its 10th anniversary later this year.
On Wednesday, May 28, students under- taking certificates II and III in conservation and land management will take part in a community planting day in the native gardens surrounding the centre
Other highlights will include the granting of inaugural Victorian Local Governance Association community and local government HART awards, which will recognise council and community partnerships that contribute to reconciliation outcomes.
Nominations for the awards close on Friday and winners will be named on June 5.
