Jade Jungwirth
Nalderun Education Aboriginal Corporation will receive $1.4 million through the Aboriginal Community Infrastructure Program to build Me-Mandook Galk Indigenous Education Place – creating a home and a lasting legacy for local First Nations Peoples.
For the past 17 years, Nalderun has been providing cultural education, wellbeing and youth leadership programs that empower First Nations young people to learn, grow and thrive.
Carrying on the legacy of Uncle Brien Nelson and Aunty Julie McHale, Nalderun CEO Kath Coff and Dja Dja Wurrung Elder Uncle Rick Nelson are now taking the next steps in creating space for First Nations Peoples to celebrate culture and connect to Country.
A small crowd met at the bush block in Chewton on Monday to celebrate the incredible journey that led to this moment.
Cultural hub and education centre
“The wheels are turning,” Uncle Rick said.
“We’re here because we’ve got the second part of our funding for the cultural hub and education centre. We’ll have a gallery, offices, be able to run tourism, and we’ll have a school, because the future starts with our youth.”
He spoke about Nalderun’s past and how they had used multiple properties across the region, government buildings and old schools.
“Now we have our own home. My dad would be over the moon that we’ve come this far,” he said.
Kath acknowledged Aunty Julie, saying she was an amazing woman who had trained her up and had left big shoes to fill.
“This place is not just about the building; it’s the education in Country, involved with everything we’ve already got happening. The bush tucker farm is already here; we’ve got endangered fish in the dam that we’re looking after,” she said.
“We’re putting back into Country and repairing.”
Youth at the centre of reconnecting
First Nations youth mentor Ben Reid, who has been with Nalderun since the very beginning, recalls attending Aunty Julie’s after-school program in the Ray Bradfield Rooms as a young boy, and time spent at the old school in Yapeen where they would have cook-ups and listen to Aunty Julie’s stories.
“We’ve always inhabited unintentional spaces that already exist in the community, but now to have something that will be purpose-built for our programs and for our young people- it is the most amazing thing. It’s been a beautiful evolution,” he said.
“It’s so important for the kids, because the history of this country for the last 200 years has been displacement and unsettling. It’s a decolonial act to re-settle this land with First Nations youth at the core of the reconnecting. We feel that deeply within ourselves and Country feels that deeply as well.
“So many kids, as a result of colonisation, have lost connection to their cultural heritage, and being able to reconnect is one of the most powerful things you can do.”
Threat to Treaty
Making the funding announcement on Monday, long-time advocate for Nalderun, Bendigo West MP Maree Edwards, teared up as she spoke about the threat posed to Treaty in the upcoming election.
“Treaty is important to our state. It’s important to our First Nations people, particularly the young people who will be using Nalderun here, in this beautiful space, to learn about their culture, their history and what their future looks like,” she said.
“This is the oldest living culture in the world. We are privileged to have First Nations people as our neighbours and our friends, and we are privileged to be welcomed by them into their culture.
“Everyone knows First Nations Peoples are often left behind in economic terms and in health terms and in environmental terms. Treaty is about allowing First Nations Peoples to self-determine their future and have their world and their culture represented at the state level and their voices to be heard loud and clear. That is what Gellung Warl and Treaty is all about.”
Overseeing the project will be co-delivered by community consultant Camilo Demarco and experienced local architect Lisa Merkesteyn, who will help create a vibrant cultural education hub at the base of Me Mandook Galk (the grandmother tree) under the watchful gaze of Bunjil as he circles above.