Darlington Point’s Tirkandi Inaburra centre this week celebrated the graduation of a cohort of a dozen boys aged 12 to 15 years who successfully completed a semester with the centre.
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The cultural and development center is located south of Darlington Point off the Kidman Way and is designed to help troubled indigenous youths to become more sociable and to find a sense of connection and pride from their indigenous heritage.
Elated by their achievement in finishing a full semester Michael Cutmore, Max Haverka, Tyson Williams, Malaki Bourke, Tvrello Richards, Brayden Morgan Murray, Kim Garlett, Byron Martin, Jacob Bectson, Clayton Ross, Jayden Gill and Jesse Quinn were eager to demonstrate their knew found pride to an audience of family and teachers.
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Paying little heed to the midweek midday heat, the boys donned the ceremonial dress of their warrior ancestors and performed a well drilled and cohesive dance that was the culmination of many weeks of practice.
“I feel proud of who I am proud of my tribe, we’re going to teach some boys how to dance and spread our culture,” said Jesse Quinn.
“I feel like our culture is going to live on,” said Kim Garlett.
The boy’s instructor in the dance Uncle Will Gordon said getting the boys to dance and sing together was vital for building their respect, discipline and moral.
“The only way I could be anymore proud of the boys was if they were my own sons,” Uncle Gordon said.
“We had an experience a couple of weeks ago at Coleambally Central School where the boys did a dance for half the day and then did a workshop teaching the students and they really enjoyed it.
“A lot of them are natural born leaders and they expressed after that they are also natural born teachers.
“Once they connect with their culture we found they gain more respect and it helps them connect more with the education side of things, they realise now that if they can get a good education it gives them a chance to get a good job, and have a chance to in the future have families and be strong leaders in their communities,” Uncle Gordon said.
Centre Liason Officer Damian Thorne said that getting the boys to respect their indigenous culture is crucial in giving them an outlet to feel valued, and have a sense of belonging outside of wider Australian society.
“The program is helping keep our boys on the strait and narrow and were using not only the powers of behavior management, but good old fashioned Aboriginal law,” Mr Thorne said.
“We’re trying to make them strong and proud of who they are, if they are trying to achieve something there is nothing stopping them but themselves, we teach them value in direction, value in having goals and value in resilience.
“Some boys when they rock up here they come as bullies but when they leave they are all happy and friendly, we hope that when they go back to their communities it gives them the goal to strive for a better education,” Mr Thorne said.
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