Healing

Mobile 'Phone Apps. A nice end to NAIDOC Week celebrations when the first stage in the development of a mobile 'phone app for clients of the Boorndawan Willam Aboriginal Healing Service coincided with Melbourne's Outer Eastern Region NAIDOC Ball. Quite an achievement - the young Indigenous software engineer developed the app while completing an Honours degree and dealing with the potentially life-threatening illness of a close family member. After missing out on funding we invested our own time and money because of the urgency of the need. Maybe it was a bit like leading with your chin to commence our funding application with the following: ‘V. S. Naipaul famously said that the colonised were condemned to use the telephone never to invent it. This project contests the fatalism of Naipaul’s dictum in two ways: It builds mastery and capacity in Indigenous communities in relation to evolving information technologies and systems; and Indigenous leadership and knowledge are central to the methodology it uses.’

AIME (Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience). This organisation continues to set new benchmarks in achievement. A recent email:


'They say good things come in threes. Think Musketeers, happy birthday cheers and Origin deciders...

And now, for the third year running, AIME kids have finished school at almost the same rate as every Australian child. We've just released the 2011 AIME Annual Report, and the results are in. 
 

It's because of results like these that ABC told AIME's Australian Story. It's because of results like these that the Prime Minister of Australia donned an AIME Hoodie to celebrate Indigenous success. And it's because of people like you that we're seeing a generation of Indigenous kids, a generation of Indigenous and non-Indigenous university Mentors, and a whole nation, step up to believe in something bigger, something better.' 

Check out AIME 's annual report and also  the University of Melbourne's own Seamless Transition Education Pathway (STEPP) program.

Honourable Mention. "A good night's drinking in the village. Sharrocks and I went to the local cinema to see  film about the aborigines of Australia - Bitter Springs. The aborigines were good.' John Fowles,  The Journals: Volume 1, 2003, 159.


Don't Forget. @ 7.00pm, on the 25th of July Australian Indigenous Studies hosts a major address by Professor Kim Scott at the Spot Basement Theatre, Business and Economics.  In a wide-ranging address Professor Scott will bring together his concerns with Indigenous cultural renewal though language revitalization, and the role of literature in an evolving vision of Australia in the twenty-first century. This event will be followed by a reception to honour Professor Scott.

http://www.facebook.com/TheKimScottColloquium

The Kim Scott Colloquium 2012

Guest Post from Ruby Lowe, Co-Coordinator, The Kim Scott Colloquium

Australian Indigenous literature has played a major role in my literary education at The University of Melbourne.  I am currently completing my honours thesis on the political dimensions of John Milton’s early poetry, while taking course work subjects in English Literature and Australian Indigenous Studies. I am also co-convening the first national conference on an Australian Indigenous author with Philip Morrissey. 

The idea for the Kim Scott Colloquium 2012 began as a series of informal discussions by a dedicated group of Kim Scott’s readers. Interest within the university, combined with Kim Scott’s recent accumulation of literary accolades, made Philip and I realise that there should be a formal academic recognition and analysis of Kim Scott’s work.

Two major events will be held at The University of Melbourne to celebrate and discuss Kim Scott’s writing.  Kim Scott has agreed to give a public lecture at The University of Melbourne on 25 July. This will be followed by a colloquium on Kim Scott’s writings on 3-4 August this year.

The colloquium will survey Scott’s fiction and focus on True Country (1993), Benang (1999) and That Deadman Dance (2011). Emerging and established scholars from Australian Indigenous Studies, English Literary Studies, Creative Writing and Contemporary Art will engage with Scott’s representation of Australian history, politics and identity.

 

To register an expression of interest email Kate Rendell, rendellk@unimelb.edu.au.

 

Heartland and Greenland

Daniel Geale. A capacity crowd filled Derwent Entertainment Centre in Tasmania for Daniel Geale's first defence of his International Boxing Federation middleweight title. Geale is Indigenous and enters the ring with the Aboriginal flag, and has a map of Tasmania emblazoned in the Aboriginal colours on his boxing trunks, but in Tasmania he attracts a heartland crowd: anti-Greens and anti-Bob Brown. Passionate in their support for Daniel as a Tasmanian they sang along with the national anthem and knew all the words. It was as close as boxing ever gets to being sport. As well as musing on the crowd I had a chance to watch Geale perform. He wasn't at his best but is Australia's best pure boxer since Johnny Famechon.

Introducing the fighters.

Waiting to sing Advance Australia Fair.

Later this Week. A lecture on Kim Scott's Miles Franklin award winning novel That Deadman Dance for Melbourne Free University at the Alderman in Lygon Street, Brunswick. That Deadman Dance is more accessible than his earlier novels True Country and Benang; the prose is simpler and it's in the popular contact narrative genre. The context as such is immediately evident and there are sentimental moments. There are also continuing passages of majestic writing and evocations of wind, sea and sand that resonate long after reading.