NAIDOC Week


From 8 - 15 July, Australia is celebrating Naidoc Week, with the theme for this year 50 years: Looking Forward, Looking Blak. NAIDOC celebrates the survival of Indigenous culture and the Indigenous contribution to modern Australia. It is held around Australia in the first full week in July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. NAIDOC originally stood for ‘National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee’ which was once responsible for organising national activities during NAIDOC Week. Now its acronym is the name of the week itself.

What goes on during this week? Usually there are local activities and also 'national focus' activities. Some of the local activities that you can do is: Listen to Indigenous music, Study Aboriginal arts and crafts, Read a Dreamtime story, and Learn the meanings of local or national Aboriginal place names.


The ‘national focus’activities are more elaborate, and these include:

* choosing a national focus city or town - for 2007 it is Darwin, Northern Territory
celebrations are based on a national theme
* distribution of the national NAIDOC poster based on the theme, chosen from entries to the NAIDOC Poster Competition
* celebrations culminate in an awards ceremony and ball held in the focus city - in 2007 the National NAIDOC Awards and Ball will be held at SkyCity Casino, Darwin on Black Friday, 13 July 2007
* at the ball, national awards are given to Indigenous achievers in a number of categories.

The Department of Attorney General, where I work, and the Department of Corrective Service are also participating in this event. Last Friday a few colleagues and I was involved in painting the the WA banner. Each department under these two Departments were given a circle on the banner where we were suppose to express our interpretation of the Naidoc week in painting. Five of us went and none of us had any idea of what to paint!! We were under the impression that a design would be allocated to us and all we had to do was paint it. I guess that was a wishful thinking, coz we were told that we were suppose to come up with our own design. But, being creative people that we are, even though artwork is not one of our forte :-), we managed to put together some aboriginals artwork and created a beautiful piece. I also got to know some symbols that are used by the aboriginals in their art, for eg the kangaroo, child, people, snake etc etc. I guess I can proudly say that I have participated in this year's Naidoc Week :-)








Want to know more? Click here: Naidoc history