NAIDOC Week is a celebration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and a chance to acknowledge our history, culture and achievements.
The NAIDOC 2023 theme - For Our Elders
From the NAIDOC week website:
"Across every generation, our Elders have played, and continue to play, an important role and hold a prominent place in our communities and families.
They are cultural knowledge holders, trailblazers, nurturers, advocates, teachers, survivors, leaders, hard workers and our loved ones.
Our loved ones who pick us up in our low moments and celebrate us in our high ones. Who cook us a feed to comfort us and pull us into line, when we need them too.
They guide our generations and pave the way for us to take the paths we can take today. Guidance, not only through generations of advocacy and activism, but in everyday life and how to place ourselves in the world.
We draw strength from their knowledge and experience, in everything from land management, cultural knowledge to justice and human rights. Across multiple sectors like health, education, the arts, politics and everything in between, they have set the many courses we follow.
The struggles of our Elders help to move us forward today. The equality we continue to fight for is found in their fight. Their tenacity and strength has carried the survival of our people.
It is their influence and through their learnings that we must ensure that when it comes to future decision making for our people, there is nothing about us - without us.
We pay our respects to the Elders we’ve lost and to those who continue fighting for us across all our Nations and we pay homage to them."
See the NAIDOC Week Website for more information and resources.
From the frontier wars and the earliest resistance fighters to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities fighting for change today this theme continues to be of singular importunate.
Whether it’s seeking proper environmental, cultural and heritage protections, Constitutional change, a comprehensive process of truth-telling, working towards treaties, or calling out racism—we must do it together.
For more than 60,000 years, Parramatta has been home to the Dharug peoples, the traditional custodians of the land we call the City of Parramatta today. The Dharug peoples have cared for and nurtured the habitat, land, and waters for thousands of generations, and maintain an ongoing connection to Parramatta and its surrounding areas.
Indigenous Australians continue to play a vital role in the ecological, economic, social and cultural life of Parramatta, while maintaining a distinct culture built on the principles of Caring for Country, the primacy of family, and the dignity and governance of Elders.
Please see the NAIDOC information on the City of Parramatta Website for more information and celebrations.
Emma Stockburn, Acting Team Leader - City of Parramatta, 2023