Cobar High School celebrated NAIDOC Day at the school on Monday with students taking part in a range of activities to mark the occasion.
NAIDOC Day activities are held around the country each year to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The NAIDOC 2018 theme, ‘Because of her, we can!’, recognises the invaluable contributions that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have made (and continue to make) to their communities, their families, our rich history and to our nation.
A number of students spoke at the NAIDOC ceremony about how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women continue to play active and significant roles at community, local, state and national levels.
Attendees heard about how, as leaders, trailblazers, politicians, activists and social change advocates, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women fought and continue to fight, for justice, equal rights, rights to country, for law and justice, access to education, employment and to maintain and celebrate their culture, language, music and art.
They are mothers, elders, grandmothers, aunties, sisters and daughters.
The students also spoke about how Indigenous women’s roles in cultural, social and political situations has often been invisible, unsung or diminished.
For at least 65,000 years, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have carried dreaming stories, songlines, languages and knowledge that have kept their culture strong and enriched Australia as the oldest continuing culture on the planet.
Cobar Public School’s aboriginal dance troupe, The Yalbillinga Dance Group, performed before the high school students broke up into groups to take part in a range of activities including cooking, playing sport, ochre body painting, basket weaving and helping to construct a mosaic tile river in the schools’ Yarning Circle.
