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Recognition, Respect, Reconciliation
Our enduring commitment to Indigenous Australia
The sweet scent of smoking leaves has filled the Wesley air in recent times. Local Indigenous people have lit the fires, and we have walked through the cleansing smoke. The journey towards reconciliation is gathering pace in our school with our new Reconciliation Action Plan helping us weave the age-old cultures of the lands upon which we live and learn into the fabric of our community.
While our ‘Wesley College Melbourne Reconciliation Action Plan’ (RAP) might herald our deepening embrace of Indigenous Australia, our commitment to reconciliation has been living and breathing across Wesley in many ways over the years, including in the classroom, at formal and informal gatherings, through our student-led activist group Wesmob, and, of course, through our Yiramalay/ Wesley Studio School partnership.
When the first Yiramalay buildings arrived by truck at Leopold Downs Station in the Kimberley in 2010, hopes were high for the success of a new kind of Indigenous education model, one that involved learning on country and was based on deeply felt principles and more than a little dash of faith. Twelve years later, faith in the partnership between the Wesley and Bunuba communities has been emphatically vindicated, transforming Indigenous and non-Indigenous lives alike.
On July 1 2022, Yiramalay transitioned to Studio Schools of Australia (SSA), where it will form the basis of an extended studio schools program across the north of Australia. Under the new SSA foundation, three new studio schools will be established over the next three years, supported by a dedicated Indigenous Education and Resource Centre on country. The new schools will include a Middle School studio school at Windjana Gorge and two studio schools at Roebourne in Western Australia and Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory.
Importantly, Wesley College will continue as the partner school for the Yiramalay Studio School, with Year 10 students continuing to have the unique opportunity to learn on country through the threeweek Yiramalay Induction Program. Yiramalay students wishing to study the VCE or IB will continue to do so at the Glen Waverley Campus.
Former Wesley College Principal, Dr Helen Drennen, was a driving force in bringing Yiramalay into existence and in nurturing it through its early years. Now CEO of SSA, she has the tremendous satisfaction of seeing the two-way learning model flourish into something bigger. ‘To have this educational journey recognised last year with Federal funding of more than $75m for the development of a new system of Studio Schools modelled on Yiramalay is the greatest thrill of my career,’ she says. ‘I’m very proud of the achievements of the Yiramalay alumni since leaving school and of the contributions of Wesley alumni, staff and friends to the development of Yiramalay.’
How Yiramalay has grown to become an educational lighthouse is perhaps best explained by those who have experienced it firsthand.
Lucy Kenny came to the school in 2018 to work as a mentor. ‘Being at Yiramalay for two years gave me the opportunity to see students grow and achieve things they didn’t think were possible,' she says. ‘Through their own success, they have developed confidence in themselves, and many students have become strong leaders in the Yiramalay community and in their communities back home.’
Gavin Marks agrees. Currently teaching numeracy and science at Yiramalay, he recognises ‘the incredible sense of community’ that’s fostered there, and the unique role it plays in overcoming the challenges faced by young Indigenous adults in the Kimberley. ‘It’s an environment that encourages learning and allows for healing to take place,’ he says.
Now in his final year of a Bachelor of Arts at Melbourne University and working part time as a policy officer at the Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency, Yiramalay alumnus, Brigalow McIntosh is clear about the role Yiramalay has played in his development.
‘Being on country, learning from elders and my peers and meeting so many people from across Australia… I can say with honesty that I grew so much in my own identity and culture from those experiences,’ he says. ‘The opportunities that Yiramalay gave me and the support that was there when I needed it was super important to realising what I wanted to do after school.’
Students created a ‘Sea of Hands’ to mark Reconciliation Week
Aerial view of the Yiramalay Studio School
The Wesley AFLW Girls and Boys First Football teams proudly wear their Indigenous strips
The Wesley AFLW Girls and Boys First Football teams proudly wear their Indigenous strips
Game on!
Student housing at Yiramalay
Yiramalay students in Melbourne
Yiramalay/Wesley Studio School Class of 2021 Graduation in Broome WA
Kaylene Marr sharing cultural knowledge with a young visitor at Yiramalay.
Current Year 12 student at Learning in Residence, Tonheya McCormack, also remembers ‘the opportunities and help’ she had at Yiramalay. She admits that ‘having no phone service did make me a bit stressed out in the beginning, but it was good to get away from technology and reconnect with yourself and your surroundings.’
Past Acting Director and current Yiramalay Induction Coordinator, Kym Adams, notes the effect the experience has on the kids from Melbourne as well. ‘The contribution the school makes to 'Closing the Gap' for its Indigenous students is life changing, but I’m constantly amazed at what a profound impact the program has on our visiting Wesley students. The measure of changes they will make to our world as a result of what they have learnt is yet to be realised, but it will not be insignificant.’
Jemima Montag (OW2016) is just one of those students. She experienced Yiramalay as a Year 10 Induction student in 2014, and it had a lasting effect on her. ‘My sister Andie (OW2021) and I found that our Yiramalay experiences have informed our visions for longer-term careers,’ she says. ‘Now studying medicine and dentistry, we often speak about setting up a mobile clinic one day and visiting Aboriginal communities. While we study for the next few years to make that mobile clinic a reality, our experiences at Yiramalay mean we can have open-minded and informed conversations.’
The Wesley College RAP, which is to be launched later this month, is the result of many such open-minded and informed conversations. Endorsed by Narragunnawali, the education arm of Reconciliation Australia, it provides a framework to embed authentic and sustainable practices in the everyday life of the school. It provides opportunities to develop and strengthen our connections to local contexts, to listen to the voices of Indigenous people, and to realise that all actions, large and small, contribute to nurturing the relationships that we have as a community.
Over the past 18 months, the RAP has been developed by a College working group comprising a balance of voices which includes Indigenous representation, teaching and non-teaching staff and students, guided by Narragunnawali and our cultural consultant, AJ Williams-Tchen.
'It’s been an honour and a privilege to work with Wesley on their RAP. It is an important part of their journey towards reconciliation.' - Wiradjuri and Wotjobaluk man AJ Williams-Tchen, Cultural Consultant
Aside from Acknowledgement of Country, which has been an integral part of all of our formal gatherings for some years now, what will the RAP look like on a day-to-day basis at Wesley?
Local cultural context is important. We’re spread across Victoria at seven different campus and camp locations, so our connections to country are unique for each site. For example, Clunes is on Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Last term, they had their first Welcome to Country smoking ceremony, conducted by Dja Dja Wurrung man Troy Firebrace. The ceremony will occur every term as a way of welcoming students to the Clunes campus.
In the classroom, orienting students to Clunes’ broad cultural history is part of our core curriculum. They will investigate their understanding of place and connection to land using Clunes as a case study, starting with Dja Dja Wurrung history and perspectives, moving to the colonial gold rush, and then taking a global perspective with a sustainability lens.
Smoking ceremonies are an enduring cultural practice for Indigenous people. They are cleansing for the ‘murrup’ or spirit, and provide time for reflection and the resetting of purpose. Contrary to what might be instinctual, we are asked to go toward the smoke, to breathe it in deeply and to cover ourselves with it. In recent months, as part of creating a baseline experience for students and staff of Boon Wurrung culture, smoke has filled Fitchett Hall at Elsternwick Campus and plumed from firepits on the Back Turf and the Junior School outdoor space at our St Kilda Road Campus.
During Reconciliation Week, Wesley Football confirmed their ongoing commitment to reconciliation with a smoking ceremony conducted before the Wesley and St Kevin’s Firsts Football match. All Wesley teams proudly wore their Indigenous strip and a cultural evening with Indigenous players from the North Melbourne Football Club was held.
‘This project is incredibly important as it will bring the goal of ongoing commitment to reconciliation to the very forefront and core of our school, to hopefully evolve our community into a place that is not just tolerant, but truly celebrates Indigenous culture, knowledges and perspectives.’ - Edie Salamito, Wesmob Prefect at St Kilda Road Campus
These are just some examples of Wesley’s ongoing engagement with Indigenous Australians. Reconciliation isn’t something that happens in a week. It’s a lived experience, one that is at times uncomfortable, and at other times, empowering. In 2022, our knowledge and recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s pride, oppression, dispossession and determination requires more than empathy and awe; it is a knowledge that carries a responsibility to listen and to act, nurturing relationships and respect.
The Wesley College Melbourne Reconciliation Action Plan will be published by Narragunnawali and officially launched later this month.
Contributors: Rohan Chiu, Co-Chair of the Wesley College RAP Working Group and Wesmob Coordinator for St Kilda Road Campus and Paul Munn, Editor of Lion.