Gabrielle Wynhausen – Primary Teacher

NAIDOC Week is held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It’s a week celebrated by Australians from all walks of life and cultures, not only Indigenous communities.  

This year’s NAIDOC theme, Heal Country, Heal our Nation, is a call to action for all of us and challenges us to work even harder to protect: 

“our lands, our waters, our sacred sites and our cultural heritage from exploitation, desecration and destruction”. 

By celebrating NAIDOC week this year, we begin to learn that for many Australians, a country is more than a place, and it is central to many people’s identity. 

In the Primary School, we will be celebrating NAIDOC Week in our first week back at school. We will be lucky enough to start our term with a Welcome to Country from an Elder from the La Perouse Land Council and students from Year 5 will run sessions for students across the school, as well as hosting a NAIDOC Week Assembly. In the High School, we are excited to launch Putuwa as part of our NAIDOC Week celebration. This project will foreground the role of language in learning about and from First Nations histories and cultures – watch this space!

As NAIDOC Week falls in the holidays this year, we wanted to share some of the exciting events available that allow us all to mark and celebrate NAIDOC week during our break:

• NAIDOC week events
• NAIDOC family day