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1. Showing up with movement

   Movement with First Nations games, speakers and sharing of stories. Fun for all.

2. NAIDOC Movie Night

   • Movie screening of
   In My Blood It Runs
   • Q&A session with local
   Aboriginal Elders
   • Cultural workshops
   • FREE Barbeque

3. Shelley Ware
   
    

   Mrs Shelley Ware is a proud Yankuntjatjarra, Wirangu and Kookatha woman who grew up in Ceduna and Tarndanya (Adelaide) but now lives in Naarm (Melbourne). She is a teacher, author and media presenter with over two decades of classroom experience and has spent her career advocating for truth telling, self-determination and reconciliation through her work. 

   In addition to her work in the classroom Shelley has spent the last ten years as an educational consultant helping countless teachers, leadership teams, students, schools and university faculties with individually designed workshops. A major focus of Shelley’s work is guiding schools to help them embed First Nations perspectives and cultures into their everyday practices, in a respectful and culturally safe way. 

   Shelley has also contributed to classrooms nationwide by creating over 50 national curriculum aligned teaching resources. Shelley has created the resources provided by SBS Learn for National NAIDOC Week for the past six years. She has written teacher resources for many Indigenous television programs like The Australian Wars series and The First Inventors and many First Nations authored children’s books including the Uncle Archie Roach and the Adam Goodes children book series. These are all used by parents and teachers to help support their teachings of First Nations cultures and histories around Australia every day.

   Shelley has written a text book called Sunshine Classics Teacher Notes designed to help teachers teach reading in the classroom. Her work has be an addition to many education publications and text books across all levels of study.  

   Recently Shelley was the education consultant of a new wellbeing program, Matterworks, which is available in all schools around Australia. This specially designed program highlights the needs of First Nations children’s in schools and the importance of culturally safe school environments. By supporting teachers to understand the needs of First Nations students, this program helps First Nations students to feel seen and heard, increasing their likelihood of remaining in school. 

   Shelley has been an Indigenous Literacy Ambassador for the past 10 years, advocating for better literacy outcomes for First Nations people. She continues to mentor students so they too can become published authors. To date she has supported the writing of seven books through the ILF ‘Create Initiative’ program. The books include the Japarikka series, Tiwi Seasons with Marius and Tiwi Girl Hunters. 

   She is a published author herself with a funny short story in the Total Quack Up Again book. Shelley recently published her first children’s story book We are Matildas. This touching story revolves around the young Aboriginal main character, Jazzy, who wishes to one day play with the Matilda’s. Jazzy and her likeminded friends create a team together to play the sport they love. This book helps to normalise Aboriginal people as main characters in mainstream picture story books. 

   Shelley has been involved in media for over two decades appearing on live televisions shows on Channel 7, NITV and AFL.com. Shelley is well known for her time on Marngrook Football show. Through this television work she has been able to educate the wider Australian audience about the effects of racism and the importance of education, truthtelling, and the many Indigenous affairs close to her heart. Shelley’s work has helped to break down barriers for other First Nation voices in the media and to dispel the harmful stereotypes commonly held about her people.

   Her media career has enabled her to appear regularly on many podcasts, radio stations and in print media where she advocates and educates Australian on the truths, that are often hard for many to hear, but she knows are necessary to say, for real change to happen. 

   She writes a fortnightly opinion and AFL column for the Koori Mail which shines a light on what is happening and what is possible. Shelley’s column aims to uplift and challenge her community by bringing attention to stories that are overlooked by the mainstream media and that spark conversation. 

   Throughout her illustrious career, Shelley has remained focused on improving the representation of First Nations cultures and histories in Australian classrooms and in the media. Shelley’s contributions have had a significant impact on the way First Nations cultures and histories are taught in schools today and how they will be taught in the future.

4. Mullum Mullum Community Blak Arts
   Mullum Mullum Indigenous Gathering Place and Arts in Maroondah present Mullum Mullum Community Blak Arts.

5. The Artistic Magnitude of Mullum Mullum

   Mullum Mullum Indigenous Gathering Place's (MMIGP) new exhibition showcases the multi-talented Artists within the local Indigenous Community. The exhibition presents art down through the ages, from the Ancestors to modern times-from soft weaving used for gathering and serving food to furs used for

6. Occupation Studies

   Multimedia artist Tahlia Palmer launches her latest thought-provoking multimedia exhibition “Occupation Studies”
   

7. Murrawah Johnson
   

   Murrawah Johnson is a Wirdi woman from the Birri Gubba Nation. Murrawah holds connection to Wangan and Jagalingou Country as a Wirdi Traditional Owner, and is also proud of her ties to Kangalou, Kullilli and Iman Peoples. Since being asked at the age of 19 by her Elders in their Traditional Owners Family Council to be a voice of young people and future generations, she has shown her commitment to Country, culture, justice and a strong self-determined future for her people.  

   Murrawah is now an established Aboriginal rights advocate, and has worked on Aboriginal rights litigation in the Federal Court and Supreme Court of Queensland; lobbying State and Federal governments, and international financial corporations; and building First Nations campaign capacity to represent on critical human rights, environment and climate change issues.  

   In 2016, she was nominated by famed activist and author, Naomi Klein, for the Grist 50's List of the world’s top "movers and shakers". In 2017 she was named Young Environmentalist of the Year by the Bob Brown Foundation; received Ngara Institute's Inaugural Activist of the Year; was Youth Keynote Speaker to the National Native Title Conference, celebrating 25 years of Mabo, and, at 21, was the youngest Traditional Owner to present to the Senate Inquiry into Native Title Amendments.  

   She has co-authored submissions to UN agencies and rapporteurs on human rights breaches and built research and policy agendas. She also works on community-level Indigenous and climate justice strategies and has facilitated First Nations solidarities in the CANZUS countries which includes Canada and the United States of America (Turtle Island), Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand. 

   As the youth spokesperson for the Wangan and Jagalingou Family Council, Murrawah was at the forefront of the fight against the Adani coal mine. Now she is a co-director and First Nations Lead for Youth Verdict, a small organisation using legal pathways to advocate for First Nations Human Rights and climate action. 

   Murrawah has collaborated with the Environmental Defenders Office, who are a non-profit, non-government community legal centre dedicated to protecting the environment through providing access to justice, running litigation and leading law reform advocacy.  

   Murrawah, as the Youth Verdict First Nations Lead and Co-Director, was involved in the historic Land Court case against the southern hemisphere’s largest new proposed coal mine - Waratah Coal’s Galilee Coal Project. Youth Verdict objected to Waratah Coal's Project under legislation such as the Environmental Protection Act (1994) and the Queensland Human Rights Act (2019). This case centred First Nations witnesses and their human right to culture and publicly highlighted the impact climate change is already having on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Queensland. 

   In a powerful and precedent-setting decision, the President of the Land Court recommended that the mining lease and environmental authority applications be refused by the relevant Ministers. This was a 'clean sweep' victory for Murrawah and the Youth Verdict and Environmental Defender’s Office teams. The recommendation was based on the mines' contributions to climate change, its impact on the environment and the unjustifiable limitations placed on the human and cultural rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and others, including young people and their right to life.  

   This was the first time a court has ruled against a mining approval on climate change grounds and the climate impacts on First Nations cultures. Murrawah laid the groundwork for the success of the case through her co-design of a First Law Protocol, established in collaboration with the Environmental Defender’s Office, which has since become a blueprint for ways the court should hear and consider First Nations evidence in line with the Queensland Human Rights Act (2019).  

   The First Law Protocol resulted in the Land Court hearing First Nations evidence on-Country for the first time ever, elevating the weight given to First Nations evidence in objections to new fossil fuel projects. The Court now treats that evidence as a form of expert knowledge. The impacts of this case for broader Indigenous rights, environment and climate movements are still being processed and this case is likely to have generational ramifications for future fossil fuel projects happening on Aboriginal land.  

   Murrawah continues to work tirelessly using media and legal platforms to highlight the impacts of climate change on First Nations peoples. She has also worked to platform other First Nations community leaders, 'passing the microphone' to the witnesses in the case and getting their cultural knowledge on record. She did all this while starting her own family, giving birth just a week before she fronted a press conference for the first hearing of the case in April 2022. 

   Murrawah is a staunch, dedicated and principled advocate and campaigner for First Nations rights. Her work fighting fossil fuels projects, as a major contributing factor to disastrous climate change, is grounded in her own connection to Country, culture and family. She is an inspirational role model for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and the broader Australian community.

   Video created by Blacklock Media.

8. Keep The Fire Burning @ Baringa Community Centre 6th July

   This is a Murrawarra Community motivated event at Baringa Community Centre. Murrawarra creates a safe spiritual and cultural space for our first nations knowledge systems arts and their custodians.

9. Centuries of Friendship

   A music and dance performance celebrating the rich history between the Australian Indigenous people of the Northern Territory and the people of Macassar

10. Whoopee Do Crew NAIDOC

    Music with Jenny Pineapple and Duane Doyle - Truth telling in Song