00:00 I went to a school in Coffs Harbour.
00:02 Nice.
00:03 Big change, big change heading north.
00:05 It's the first bilingual school in NSW.
00:08 It's where my family comes from.
00:10 So I made the decision to head up north for a year or so
00:14 and get back on country and heal some of those wounds
00:18 left from a bit of history.
00:21 Yeah, nice. I heard from a few kiddos, and I saw it on Dojo,
00:24 and a couple of kiddos are worried that they'll never see you again.
00:27 Is that the plan?
00:29 No, no, no, that's not the plan.
00:31 The plan is that I will be back at Coonawarra.
00:33 It is a leave from Coonawarra, but the plan is to go back to country
00:38 to learn the language, to really connect to the culture there
00:41 and see what it means to be Gominggidari, to be two paths strong on country
00:47 and to have those connections, those opportunities that my parents
00:51 and grandparents missed out on, and hopefully bring that knowledge back here
00:56 and see how I can help embed that in Beelawarra and at Coonawarra.
01:01 Yeah, when I first heard it I was sad, but then I got excited about
01:06 the prospects of you coming back with all that knowledge.
01:09 And I know how important your culture is to you, and getting back on country
01:14 is something that you've wanted to do for a long time.
01:18 And when we first saw this school pop up back in the day,
01:21 it's always been on your bucket list to go up there.
01:23 So really supportive of you going up there and ticking that item off.
01:27 And stoked to see what you learn and what you can bring back.
01:31 Yeah, thanks. I'm really excited. It's something we go up to a lot,
01:35 up to Nambaka there, where my family comes from.
01:38 And to actually move up there is pretty scary, it's a big change,
01:42 but it's something that needs to happen, and I feel like it needs to happen
01:47 for me personally. My family's really supportive of it,
01:50 and they're really keen for that to happen too.
01:53 So to move bigger than just me and my responsibility,
01:56 it's something that's huge for my Nan and my parents and my aunties and uncles
02:01 and all of those that were impacted from that dark part of Australian history.
02:06 [no audio]
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