On the 10th of March 2023, Priscilla and Taj from our Aboriginal Custodianship team visited Holland Street School to teach the children Indigenous cultural history and awareness.
It was a great opportunity to speak to the kids about the work NACC NRM does in our region, helping the community to look after our environment.
The kids were interested and wanted to know more about Middens, and our history rope kept the students engaged with the timeline of Indigenous history.
The team read ‘The Lost Emu’, a beautiful story book that is told through both English and Wajarri language. The students also loved our Wadjarri and Badimia dictionaries, with the translator-reading pen reading our Wadjarri words and translating them to English.
Then, the staff and students took the team for a walk around the school and showed them their Speaker, which told the Bimarra Story of the Rainbow Serpent.
Our team returned on the 30th of March 2023, with our newly appointed Aboriginal Custodianship Administration Trainee, Kyiesha.
Our NACCers spoke about how traditional fire burning is good for country and good for the soil, which the students were very interested in! Then we spoke about the Emu in the stars, and explained the time of year Emu’s would lay their precious eggs. The group also discussed finding water out bush, where the students really enjoyed looking at the pictures we had on display for them, passing the pictures around the class so they could all have a look and telling us what they thought about finding water in the bush.
One of the students surprised us with his knowledge, coming out with many great answers and unique questions.
The AC team then brought out our jigsaw puzzle, which is made out of artwork by Badimia Yamatji – Balladong Noongar woman Acacia Collard, and was created to reflect coming together, exchanging ideas, and working together to protect our region’s native wildlife. The kids tackled the puzzle together to figure it out, with a bit of help from Kyiesha and Priscilla. They worked wonderfully as a team, and were then able to flip the jigsaw over to read the meaning behind the artwork.
Our Aboriginal Custodianship Administration Trainee, Kyiesha, said she loved seeing the kids so engaged in discussion.
“Being my first visit to Holland Street School, it was nice to see them work as a team to do something that involved Aboriginal culture,” Kyiesha said.
After the puzzle fun, the NACC team played a good game of “Octopus”, where the students were having fun learning about animals that are native to Australia, and animals that were introduced.
Amazing work & thanks for educating our youth. Hopefully other school will take up this amazing opportunity too.