OVERVIEW
| Indigenous Program
Melbourne Grammar School is committed to creating an environment where Indigenous issues are understood, discussed and students are actively involved in increasing awareness and appreciation for Indigenous Australia within the Grammar community. An Indigenous art gallery named in honour of William Barak; football matches with Indigenous teams from all around Australia; the creation of an Indigenous Scholarship Program; and a student driven, student run Reconciliation Week are just some of Melbourne Grammar School’s initiatives that have been specifically designed to generate greater understanding and awareness of Indigenous issues. Since 1998, the School’s Reconciliation Committee has established meaningful relationships with Indigenous communities, institutions and individuals to assist students in exploring Indigenous culture as a means to understanding their own history and identity as Australians. In tandem, a student driven Student Aboriginal Reconciliation Committee is a powerful voice for student leadership which works to make Reconciliation a real and profound feature of life at Melbourne Grammar. Melbourne Grammar School offer Indigenous Scholarships to provide educational opportunities and develop leaders and role models within the Indigenous community. Our inaugural scholarship recipient, Daniel Measures, completed his VCE at the end of 2006 and is now happily engrossed in his tertiary studies. Our commitment to Indigenous education continues to this day, with the current enrolment of six young men in 2007, a number that increases to nine in 2008. Program and Background Information Melbourne Grammar students together with students from Worawa Aboriginal College, Healesville, celebrate National Reconciliation Week every year with a program organised by the student committee. Worawa Aboriginal College students visit Melbourne Grammar to undertake a diverse program of Art, Music and Sport activities and Melbourne Grammar students undertake an overnight camp-out on the banks of the Yarra River at Worawa in Healesville where the boys participate in Men’s Business and share experiences around a camp fire. Melbourne Grammar’s ongoing relationship with Worawa Aboriginal College aims to deliver quality cross cultural educational experiences for students of both schools.Year 10 Students from MGS’s football teams have travelled to Alice Springs where they were hosted by Yirara College, an Aboriginal boarding school, where aside from football, students shared meals and in the process made friendships that improved their cultural understanding. The Grammar Boys also had a taste of outback football on a red dirt field, playing a match in the Ltyentye Apurte community, 90 kilometres south east of Alice Springs. Students from the Midwest Football Academy in Geraldton Western Australia have also visited Melbourne Grammar for the last two years to play Melbourne Grammar in a football match as part of the Clontarf Foundation. The Academy aims to keep Indigenous students in education through football and it is our intention to nurture this relationship and support their program where possible. The School’s Barak Gallery, named after Wurundjeri elder and artist William Barak, aims to further enhance our students’ understanding of indigenous culture and identity whilst challenging traditional misconceptions and assumptions. On display in the gallery is Martin Tighe’s rendition of former AFL footballer and Indigenous advocate, Michael Long, bestowed to the School in recognition of its work towards reconciliation. The painting was. The Tindale Map, which is on permanent display in the Gallery, is of particular historical significance in this context, given its fundamental implication that Australia was not terra nullius when the First Fleet arrived in 1788. In its commitment to engaging the community in understanding and creating awareness of the Indigenous culture, the School had invited Indigenous leaders, such as Noel Pearson to address the students. Born in Cooktown and growing up at Hope Vale, Pearson is an History and Law graduate from Sydney University. As the Director of Cape York Partnerships, the voluntary team leader of Every Child Is Special, and the Director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, Pearson aims to drive policy innovation and move to include a model of active Indigenous participation in public policy debates. His current work draws widely on his thinking regarding the breaking down of ‘passive welfare dependency’ amongst Cape York Indigenous people, by reinstating the rights of Indigenous people to take responsibility for their lives. The reverberating theme of Noel Pearson’s talk to the students was: give us the right to take responsibility. |
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