Landcare Gathering at The Meeting Place

Posted on 24 April, 2017 by Asha

Gathering at The Meeting Place

Smoke drifted through the last rays of sunlight as people gathered outside at The Meeting Place in Yapeen for a Cultural Awareness Evening on Monday the 3rd of April 2017. Aunty Julie McHale and Kathryn Coff from Nalderun guided the group through a series of learning activities. The figures of Bunjil and Waa made by the Meeting Place children hung over a room packed full of people.

After the smoking ceremony, we had a game of ‘Pacman’ where Aunty Julie tested our Aboriginal history knowledge. For example, do you know what the question was on the 1967 Referendum?

We were then given a card with a picture and a snippet of an event in Aboriginal history, and we lined them up along the floor in order to make a timeline. A few people selected a card which stood out to them and shared them with the room, ranging from the Dreamtime to the present.

The last activity for the evening focused on the Kulin Nation seasons. We moved down the hall to the classroom and split into two teams. A competition was then underway to see which team could correctly match the most natural events with the correct season – surprisingly not an easy task!

A huge thank you to Aunty Julie and Kath for their hard work and kind sharing, and to Nalderun for inviting us out to the beautiful Meeting Place. It was both a fun and enlightening evening for those who attended.

This event was made possible through the Connecting Landscapes program with support from the Australian Government.