A WA Stolen Generations artist has been appointed to create artwork acknowledging the Stolen Generations, which will be placed at Wellington Square, Perth. Wellington Square has been the location for many Sorry Day events, and is a significant place for Stolen Generations survivors and countless generations of their forebears.
The Moderator of the Uniting Church WA, Rev Steve Francis, has today called on the RSL of WA to reconsider its position to ban the flying of the Aboriginal flag and the performance of Welcome to Country ceremonies during ANZAC and Rememberence Day services.
“This is an extremely disappointing decision by the RSL WA that creates real hurt for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples,” he said.
My wife and I were lucky enough to travel through Bourke in western New South Wales on a trip through central Australia to visit our son’s family in Melbourne.
I have been involved with the Mowanjum Aboriginal community for over ten years as a member of the Boab Network, which grew out of All Saint’s Floreat Uniting Church. Through the network, we have become very familiar with the issues that confront Aboriginal people in the Mowanjum community and the nearby town of Derby.
It is with great sadness that the Uniting Church WA mourns the death of Rev Garlett AM.
Rev Garlett AM, a Ballardong Wadjuk man born in the Western Australian Wheatbelt town of Bruce Rock in 1957, enriched the lives of thousands of people during his service as a Uniting Church minister, both in the church and the wider community.
Rev Garlett AM was a Stolen Generations survivor and a founding member of both Bringing Them Home WA and the WA Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation to advocate for survivors and their families. At age six, Rev Garlett was taken from his parents by Native Welfare to live at Mogumber Methodist Mission, where he stayed for 12 years. During this time he rarely saw his parents; a situation that caused lasting pain.
The 43rd Annual Meeting of the Uniting Church Synod of WA was held over the weekend, Friday 13 to Sunday 15 September, at Scotch College Perth.
Members of the meeting, including representatives from Uniting Church WA schools, agencies, congregations and faith communities, made a range of decisions, including to:
Plato advised: Leave it to the experts and Aristotle: Trust it to the wisdom of the people themselves.
The Progressive Christian Network WA conducted a very successful ‘Sustainability Now’ workshop at All Saints Floreat Uniting Church on 8 June. The inaugural event was dedicated to the First Peoples of Australia and the late Dr Bernard Bowen, a lifelong member of the Uniting Church, whose scientific legacy will benefit generations to come.
Over 70 people engaged with a range of eminent speakers.
Fr Rod Bower, activist and Rector of Gosford Anglican Church, set the religious theme with the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden as a sign that humankind was not to consume all that nature provides, to value the Sabbath for a sense of belonging to a wider community and the feeding of the five thousand; a story of creating abundance in the face of scarcity.
Around 60 people gathered at Busselton Uniting Church on Sunday 26 May to commemorate Sorry Day, a national day to remember Australia’s Stolen Generations.
The service was co-ordinated by Rev Andrew Broadbent, Minister at Busselton Uniting Church, and supported by local churches.
On arrival at the service, visitors were given a Native Hibiscus silk flower, a symbol of the Stolen Generations. According to the Kimberley Stolen Generation Aboriginal Corporation, this flower was chosen as a national symbol because it is found widely across Australia; its colours denote compassion and spiritual healing, and it is a survivor.
Imagine if you had never read or heard the message of the Bible in your own language. That is the reality for Australia’s Indigenous community. Although more than half of Indigenous people are Christians, very few have read or heard the Bible in their ‘heart’ language.
Katrina Tjitayi is from the Pitjantjatjara community, in central Australia. She is working on a translation of the whole Bible into Pitjantjatjara.
The Uniting Church WA wholeheartedly welcomes the Premier’s commitment to reducing the over-representation of Aboriginal people in custody, and calls for further action.
The Uniting Church WA (UCA WA) welcomes recent news that Premier Mark McGowan will make reducing the over-representation of Aboriginal people in custody a key priority of this Government. The Uniting Church Western Australia has a long history of advocacy regarding prison justice and the over-representation of Aboriginal people in custody.
The UCA WA believes that Western Australia’s high incarceration rate, particularly the persistent and growing over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the justice system necessitates an urgent overhaul of Western Australia’s policies relating to the criminal justice system. The UCA WA has advocated for improvements to the West Australian justice system, including calls for an end to mandatory sentencing, ending the practice of imprisoning people for unpaid fines, and reforms to the processing of women and vulnerable people, for more than 15 years.
Bidyadanga’s La Grant Remote Community School, within an Aboriginal community 180km south of Broome, approached Good Samaritan Industries (GSI) last year, for attire for their end of year ball. GSI is a Uniting Church WA agency providing employment opportunities for people living with disability, largely through their opshops around the state.