By Danielle Kutchel
Berwick College is supporting its First Nations students to feel proud and deadly.
The school’s student body came together on Thursday 15 July to celebrate Aboriginal culture with a special smoking ceremony in recognition of NAIDOC Week.
The ceremony was led by local Aboriginal Elder Shane Clarke Snr and also marked the change in First Nations land boundaries, with the school now on Bunurong land.
The school’s 19 First Nations students had pride of place at the front of the service and were afterwards invited to walk through the smoke to connect with space, place and their ancestors.
Finally, the rest of the audience took their turn to walk through the plume.
Afterwards, a special morning tea was held for the First Nations students.
Organiser Michelle Lewis, a member of the school’s Koorie Education Team and a junior school leader, said the school had recognised that its First Nations students needed support to connect, identify and develop pride.
“We hope that what we do here is enough to make them realise they should be proud and they should identify,” she said.
The school takes a number of actions to help Aboriginal students; each student on enrolment gets an allocated learning mentor who helps them develop a pathway to achieve their goals.
Koorie Education Support Officers help with cultural knowledge, and each year the school takes a group of students to a remote community to take part in community service to give back to country.
After the smoking ceremony, she said another student had approached their student learning leader and disclosed their heritage.
It was a mark of how important such ceremonies are, she said, in helping students to feel valued.
“When it comes to First Nations kids the reality is, they’re underrepresented in tertiary education … and as a society, Australia’s First Nations population is grossly overrepresented in terms of youth justice and negative health outcomes.
“There’s a reason why we all need to focus on closing the gap.
“What we can do with those 19 students is the tip of the iceberg. It’s a systemic thing that the whole country needs to be taking notice of,” she said.
College captain Trent Allen said he enjoyed being part of the event.
“Today was a really good, intimate environment with everyone around and everyone that was there felt they were connected a supported,” he explained.
He hopes that next year’s NAIDOC Week celebrations can be bigger and better.
“It’s not just about us as a school, it’s also about the community as well,” he said.
“It felt special to be part of it, and if more people have that feeling I reckon it can be even better.”
The event was attended by Gembrook MP Brad Battin, who said he was pleased the see the students’ Aboriginal background “recognised and celebrated”.
“You can see the kids are moved by the ceremony,” he said.
“A huge congratulations to the school to make sure the culture is recognised and they can keep that movement going towards what we need to do to make sure we can have that reconciliation that we do need to have, properly.”
