Closing the gap and uniting the community were the focus of Warrawong High School’s NAIDOC celebrations on Wednesday.
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With NAIDOC Week falling in the school holidays this year, the school’s Aboriginal Education Officer Lani Balzan organised a special ceremony with the focus on bringing the community together. An accomplished artist, who designed this year’s St George Illawarra Dragons indigenous guernsies and whose work won the 2016 national NAIDOC poster competition, Mrs Balzan said she wanted to use her talent to help foster understanding of different cultures.
She enlisted the help of both Aboriginal and non Aboriginal students at the school along with local elders Aunty Lindy Lawler and Aunty May Button to re-create elements of her NAIDOC poster on 20 wall panels at the school. The mural was used as a backdrop for the school’s NAIDOC ceremony.
“This is the first time that Warrawong High School has held a special NAIDOC event,” Mrs Balzan said. “The Aboriginal and the non Aboriginal kids love learning about the culture and just want to embrace it.
“It’s all about reconciliation and closing the gap and its so good to see how much the kids have learnt just from painting a mural. Aboriginal and non Aboriginal students were both involved because the point is to educate everyone in the school what Aboriginal culture is all about.”
