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key indigenous australian issues
| home | news lDescendance Palm Island Australia Day 2007By Jose Calarco 28 January 2007 - Descendance Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Dance Company were invited to Palm Island North Queensland by Bwgcolman Future, to work
with the community, present workshops for the children, and perform with them on Australia Day, this was certainly an honor and experience
we will never forget. Palm Island has been in the media for all the wrong reasons of late, the island has been portrayed as a place of fear, hatred, and disorder, but nothing could be further from the truth after spending one week there, the Palm Island we saw was one of friendship, camaraderie, and cooperation set in an idyllic tropicalparadise. The Australia Day concert was a double celebration when justice was finally served on Senior- Sergeant Chris Hurley who was at the centre of the much debated death in custody scandal; it was a tremendous victory for the small and tenacious population of 3500, and the day was celebrated in glorious sunshine, with fine music and dance without a single incident. Descendance prepared the 50 strong children's group
for a whole week and the kids gave an impressive performance that bought tears to the eyes and much delight to the locals. The children of Palm Island beam with, beauty, health and vitality as the island has no junk food stores and modern distractions, they live and play with nature and not even the odd Tiger Shark or Stingray swimming close by seems to perturb them, the weather is hot, sticky and humid interrupted by wild tropical storms Descendance song women, Nicole Willis lives on Palm Island, and together we havemade a pledge to continue to develop the children's cultural futures and help the predominately young community out any way we can. Descendance experienced both routes to Palm Island; to get there we traveled by sea which was a scenic three hour journey, delayed by a wild storm half way into the journey, and to return home we took to the air in a couple of small 5 seat planes which was a great way to view Palm and its satellite islands Goat, Phantom, Possum, Orpheus and Curaco. Palm Island will be fine, the community and Police seemed to be working together on a new level now, and its beautiful children and sound management will ensure a bright future. Source: Descendance - photos courtesy of Jose Calarco
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its one year on from the Australian Governments controversial intervention into NT Indigenous communities
action Roll back, listen to Indigenous community voices speaking about the intervention |
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