[Pensive music.]
The story of our communities, people, and nation
starts a long, long time ago.
[Music]
More than 60,000 years, in fact.
[Music.]
This was when our culture and our law
first started to thrive.
[Music.]
We knew who we were, and where we belonged.
We took care of each other,
our land, and our waters.
We ate food that made us healthy.
Lived on country,
and abided by our laws, and song lines.
Our families, our children, were happy,
with strong minds and hearts, because
they were where they belonged.
[Strong music.]
[Soft heartbeat.]
But, then...
everything changed.
Colonization came,
bringing wars, disease, famine.
Violence.
And the destruction and violation
of our cultural laws,
sacred sites,
families, and communities.
We were denied our knowledge,
language, ceremonies, and identity.
The very things that tell us
who we are, and where we belong.
And our connections
with each other, and the land, grew weak.
And then,
our children were taken from us.
They had their names changed,
and their identities stripped away.
They were told that aboriginal people were bad.
Worse still,
they were told
that their parents, and grandparents,
did not want them.
For years, this happened.
Those children became known
as "The Stolen Generations."
Our children were denied love,
and experienced physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
This left very deep, very complex,
and very real wounds,
leaving scars that are still being felt
personally, socially, spiritually, and collectively.
In the time when our story started,
we were able to parent in the cultural way
that has seen our family survive and thrive,
for generations.
Our people were strong,
and our culture flowed,
and healed us in times of hurt.
But, since the trauma of colonization
and the stolen generations,
we have not been able to heal in the same way.
We have unknowingly passed this trauma to our children,
through sharing our sad stories,
and having them witness and experience our pain.
This is known as Intergenerational Trauma.
We see symptoms today,
in broken relationships,
disconnected families,
violence, suicide,
and drug and alcohol abuse.
But, this is not where our story ends.
We still have strong minds and hearts,
and we still know
who we were, and where we belong.
By creating safe and strong communities together,
supporting our families to be free from pain,
returning to our culture,
and building a strength of identity,
we can stop the cycle of trauma,
and bring about positive intergenerational change,
so that we can continue
to thrive for the next 60,000 years.
There are simple things
that we can all do, to help heal our trauma.
Visit
healingfoundation.org.au
to find out more.