Thats a RAP!

Wow! You will not believe just how incredible last week was for the Koori Curriculum. Jessica's week started with a trip to Australia's Capital Territory to meet with Early Childhood Australia.

The Koori Curriculum was invited to collaborate on a special webinar series with ECA on Embedding Aboriginal Perspectives in Early Childhood Curriculums and Reconciliation Action Plans. Needless to say the meeting went well and Jessica will be writing and filming the series across Australia in the coming weeks and she is super excited!

Tuesday saw Jessica visit beautiful Cammerayagal country in Sydney's Crows Nest where she spent the day with the staunch educators at Kelly's Place. The Kelly's Place team were recently advised that they were finalists in Reconciliation Australia's Narragunnawali Awards.

The Koori Curriculum has been supporting the educators at Kelly's Place over the last two years by facilitating a range of professional development workshops, speaking at parent meetings and facilitating regular mentoring sessions. Jessica is so proud of the Kelly's Place community and jumped at the opportunity to talk them up to RA judges.

You may already be familiar with the advocacy work of the children at Kelly's Place and their fight to permanently fly the Aboriginal Flag on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. To learn more about their work follow  their campaign on facebook by liking their page "Help Kelly's Kids Fly the Flag". 

Next stop for Jess was a visit out to Hazelwood to meet with educators on Darug and Gundungurra Country. Jessica delivered a workshop titled "An Introduction to Aboriginal Culture and History" which is a heavy session to say the least.

Jessica often states "you don't know what you don't know but once you do, you have an ethical responsibility to do something about it". The Koori Curriculum often finds that educators have to do a whole lot of unlearning before they can relearn the truths about Australia's Black history. Knowing about the adversity's of our countries first nations people definitely supports educators to better grasp the current affairs, issues and intergenerational trauma present in many Aboriginal communities today.

Friday was spent with the deadly Uncle Jimmy, the Directors and Educational Leaders from Only About Children at their annual conference. Jessica was invited as a guest speaker to yarn about Embedding Aboriginal Perspectives in Early Childhood Curriculums and Reconciliation Action Plans.

Last stop for the week was on beautiful Wiradjuri country with the educators from Balance Education, Towri MACS and other from the local community in Bathurst and Orange. At Bathurst RSL Jessica delivered a full day workshop to develop educators cultural confidence and ability to include culture in their daily program. 

The day began with the amazing Aunty Amanda local elder delivering her first ever Acknowledgement of Country. Aunty has been an educators for the past 26 years at the local Towri MACS service in town.

Delegates also had the honour of listening to a deadly tune from young Ashton, a local Koori kid and son of one of passionate educators from Balance Education. 

What an amazing week spent with educators across NSW and the ACT. 

To learn about the Narragunnawali Awards visit www.reconciliation.org.au

To learn more about upcoming Koori Curriculum events visit www.kooricurriculum.com