A flag raising ceremony at the Civic Gardens beside the Bendigo Town Hall will officially launch the city’s NAIDOC Week celebrations from 10am Monday.
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Bendigo NAIDOC committee member Anne Conway said the ceremony would acknowledge and pay respect to the local indigenous community.
“It’s a community event with a traditional welcome to country and a performance by a local Aboriginal dance group and there’ll also be a community morning tea,” she said.
Monday is also NAIDOC Children’s Day featuring traditional games, native animals, traditional face painting and giveaways including jerseys donated by the Collingwood Football Club.
Bendigo and District Aboriginal Co-operative Family and Early Childhood Manager Simon Penrose said the games were a fun way to practice hand eye coordination.
“The traditional games are games that Aboriginal people played when they were growing up, they teach skills around hunting and gathering food and those developmental skills around how to throw the spear properly and hit the target,” he said.
“The kids will get up and learn how to do some traditional dancing, they’ll hear about the Dreamtime stories (and there will be) a couple of Aboriginal artefacts, traditional weapons and hunting implements.”
Ms Conway said Bendigo was running an extended NAIDOC Week celebration this year following the opening of the Knuldoorong art exhibition in the old TAFE building last week.
“Officially it goes to the 12th of July but here in Bendigo we actually started last Thursday night and we go through until the 17th,” she said.
Later in the week a community morning tea featuring traditional food will host the launch of Bendigo Health’s Aboriginal children’s dental service.
Local police will also host a barbecue to provide opportunities for community members to learn about pathways into a career in the force.
“Our police around here are really wonderful and supportive,” Ms Conway said.
“Sometimes there can be fairly strong barriers between Aboriginal people and the police and this helps break it all down.”
NAIDOC Children’s Day runs from 10am to 3pm Monday at the Bendigo Exhibition Centre.
The community morning tea is on at the Anne Caudle Centre between 10am and 11am on Wednesday and the police barbecue will be held at the Bendigo Police Station between 11.30am and 1.30pm on Thursday.
Entry is free.
The celebrations culminate with the BDAC NAIDOC dinner and awards night at the All Seasons Hotel on Friday July 17.
Tickets are $75 and can be purchased by phoning Libby Chapman at BDAC on 5442 4947.
For more information and a full program visit https://www.bendigo.vic.gov.au/naidoc or search “Bendigo NAIDOC Week” on Facebook.
