What is National Reconciliation Week?

https://www.reconciliation.org.au/

National Reconciliation Week started as the Week of Prayer for Reconciliation in 1993 Under the guidance of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation (now Reconciliation
Australia), it evolved into the week-long celebration.

Every year, it is held between two significant milestones in Australia’s history, May 27 and June 3. May 27 is the anniversary of the 1967 referendum. More than 90 per cent of Australians voted ‘Yes’ to count Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the census and give the Australian Government the power to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The day before 26th of May, is National Sorry Day, which was first held in Sydney in 1998 and is now commemorated nationally to remember and honour the Stolen Generations.

We spend this week learning about Australia’s Indigenous people and the impact that us, the settlers have had on the people. We look at the past, but also the future as well. How we can make things better. How including the Indigenous people can actually help towards the Australian society.

The theme for this National Reconciliation Week is  – Don’t make History a Mystery. My plan for this week is to then, do some research and then share it with you. I’m not sure what I am going to look into…So watch this space for more! We will all learn a little something.

Where I work we are to make a pledge of how we are going to help History becoming a Mystery.

Advertisement

National Sorry Day

May the 26^th is a poignant here in Australia it is “National Sorry Day”. This day is significant because it symbolises the Day where the Australian Parliament publicly apologised to the Indigenous people of Australia (the Aboriginal people).

It’s a time to reflect on what the Settlers did to the Indigenous people of this land, not only what we did to their land when we came over to “settle” Also the “certain situations” that have happened over the years. (I’m at Work right now, but on Friday I should be able to write more about this). National Sorry Day is also a part of Australia’s Reconciliation Week.

 

1000 Speak for Connection!

In the past I have Blogged a couple of posts regarding a Facebook page called 1000 Voices for Compassion and on the 20th of each month there is a challenge and people write Blog topic based on the topic for that month. In the month of the May the topics “Connection” including reconnection and reconciliation.

So I will literally just write down whatever came to mind when I thought of the word “Connection”.

Connection Prompts For our May Link-up

I think that is a really interesting topic because I find that as a general society rule we are less connected than ever before.  Yet we have all these tools to help us communicate well and efficiently and yet as I have said before we have more of a society that wants to be “right” instead of discussing and talking with one another. You watch people (especially with Twitter) who bully and send death threats to people that they don’t even know. When did this become okay? Why has this become such a problem? How can someone be so disconnected that threatening and telling people that should “go and kill” themselves, became acceptable?

I have watched many “fights” on Facebook. You have many people who will literally write “who cares”. How poignant is that?! Clearly not them (that is a whole other topic though on people who want to write “who cares” and “this isn’t news” instead of scrolling past the topic). I have asked people on Facebook directly why they felt the need to write that statement, why didn’t they just scroll past and get on with their day. Why do they think what they like is so much more and better than other? Yet, when people ask them, they get really upset?

Have we lost the connection with what is really important, how can we get it back, whose to blame, is there one area to blame or is it just everything these days? Have we lost the connection with the earth, the planet, our basic simple ways. Have we become to diverse to be able to really handle and accept the differences in others? Are we not ready to CONNECT with the other different souls on this planet? Is it too much for us to handle right now.

I believe that it is time to reconnect with and within ourselves. Go back to the basics and take a long look at what we are doing and what kind of legacy and story do we want to leave behind. I believe that we need to reconnecting with ourselves every know and then, to take a hard look at ourselves and asked ourselves “What is important to us”. Do these people really want to leave the story behind of them threatening and telling people to die behind the cowardice of a screen?

Take that walk back in a nature, kick up the leaves during autumn. Mediate…Listen to what our souls are telling us to do, telling us the path that we should take. Shut out the world of the technology. and connect with our spirits again. I think that we need to reconnect within ourselves again.