The 2020 NAIDOC Theme was ‘Always Was, Always Will Be’ acknowledging and celebrating Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peoples 65,000 year connection to country and culture.
Colour run
This year our NAIDOC Community Day featured a Colour Fun Run that was won by our South Australian Aboriginal Schools Training Academy (SAASTA) Connect students who entered the World No Tobacco Day poster competition with the Puyu Blasters Tackling Indigenous Smoking program of the Aboriginal Health Council SA (AHCSA).
The CYS SAASTA Connect program is a cluster program for Year 8 & 9 Aboriginal students. SAASTA Connect program consists of Aboriginal students from Central Yorke School, Kadina Memorial School and Minlaton District School.
We had six of our students enter the competition and from each of their posters they created a collaborative poster “I Won’t Smoke Because…”.
The collaborative poster was created by working with the Tackling Tobacco Team and Nation graphic designer company. The CYS SAASTA posters were selected for the thought that went into their smoke-free health messages, health information and graphics. The poster has been created to target their local community with smoke-free health messages and was the focus of the Colour Fun Run. The Tackling Tobacco team had an extensive smoke-free health promotion for all of us to learn about the importance of no smoking for our health.
NAIDOC Activities
Both our CYS SAASTA Connect and SAASTA students were involved in running NAIDOC activities for the R-6 classes prior to the Colour Fun Run and helping set up the event and be a part of covering everyone in the bright colours with the Puyu Blaster Team.
The NAIDOC Community Day – Colour Fun Run had other service providers come and join us for the day; Dental SA, Diabetes SA, Sonder Close the Gap, Yunggorendi – Flinders University and Primary Health Connect – Narungga Aboriginal health team.
Bush tucker tasting provided by Aboriginal parent Greg Wanganeen and we were able to taste freshly caught Wombat, Kangaroo, Butterfish and Abalone which was a real treat for everyone.
The Aboriginal Drug & Alcohol Council (ADAC) also joined us and supplied a sausage sizzle for everyone. The CYS Boys & Girls Culture Group which involves our Aboriginal students in Years R-7 cooked enough Aboriginal flag cookies for everyone to enjoy.
The day was a wonderful success despite the challenging weather conditions and glad for the cloud cover and keeping ourselves cool with water being splashed over us which is essential to the colours sticking to us to transform us into walking rainbows.
thank you!
Finally, a big thank you to the Puyu Blasters AHCSA Tackling Indigenous Smoking Team led by Carron Daveson, Tackling Tobacco Youth Project Officer for all their hard work in creating a very well organised event for all of us to enjoy and be a part of our 2020 NAIDOC celebrations.
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