Skip to main content

The rodeo hits town

The rodeo was in full swing at the local Fitzroy rodeo grounds this weekend! Whips were whacking and cracking, bulls were bucking, and the crowds jeering and cheering. Kids and families came out in big numbers to watch, and participate. There was a fantastic community atmosphere of all getting behind the talents and courage of local riders and stockmen.


 
Our CEO, June Oscar joined Gillarong Community Inc as the Vice Chair to put on this great event. June and people throughout the region have a deep attachment and ongoing involvement with station life. The Kimberley is steeped in a recent heritage of families living and working on cattle stations. There are many fascinating family connections and troubling tensions and inequalities associated with the pastoral industries involvement across Northern Australia. There is joy, pain, nostalgia and anger when people reflect on station life. These are some of the many contradictory emotions Marninwarntikura is exploring as we come to fully appreciate intergenerational trauma, resiliencies, strengths and the dynamic nature of contemporary culture.  

The national narrative of Aboriginal people’s engagement in station life is epitomised in Lingiari’s and the Gurindji’s Wave Hill walk off in their fight for equal wages and later land rights. The ramifications were felt nation-wide. Fitzroy Crossing’s existence was born from this story. In the late 70s people were forced from their station life and set up camp around the banks of the mighty Fitzroy River. Station owners insisted that they could not afford to keep workers on with the introduction of equal wages.


Still, station life and rodeo-ing hold an important place in people’s hearts. Rodeos have been running for years at the local grounds. An important event to bring together the life of the distant stations, creating community cohesion around the often spectacular skills of managing challenging and sometimes unruly and dangerous stock, clowning (by no means funny, instead nerve racking to watch as they run rings around the bulls) and riding horse and bull back.

The Gillarong Rodeo was grounded in this tradition of showcasing the talents and pure enjoyment of so many people involved in the Kimberley’s largest industry. It also reinforced peoples love and pride for this unique outback culture and way of life.

Marninwarntikura promoted the family feel of the event and the importance of coming together in celebration of culture, leisure activities, and rough, tough and committed work. We also strongly supported the advocacy messages of ‘no silence on domestic violence’, and raising awareness on youth suicide.



We’ve heard in recent weeks from women sitting in our yarning circles that we need more family events, where everyone can come together without alcohol and enjoy each other’s company. Four women working at Marnin acted on this and set up a food stall, selling their delicious home cooked stews, rice, damper and chilli relish. That’s what the rodeo was – an alcohol free space of fun and entertainment for all the children and their families to come together and drive the action, the selling of food, play the music and, ultimately, own the space. It was the perfect way to celebrate the strength of the Fitzroy Valley community on a hot and stormy weekend. 


Comments

  1. Anonymous25 October 2016 at 02:11

    Thanks for the smell of the heat and dust of the rodeo and for the reflection about the importance of shared histories. There are so many ways of creating happy and healthy communities.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Flipping your lid - some quick trauma learnings from my first week in Winnipeg

Our brains. See explanation below Re-engaging the brain, see explanation below Welcome to Turtle Island (North America)! I am currently in Winnipeg the capital of the province of Manitoba. The National Human Rights Museum, right at the fork of two rivers Some fast facts about Winnipeg and Manitoba to pull you in. Winnipeg is the third coldest urban centre to live in in the world. I’m feeling the chill! It is at least 50 degrees warmer than its minimum of -40. It is the only province in Canada founded through an act of violence (debatable I am sure). The founder of Manitoba was Louis Riel, a Métis leader, leading a rebellion to form a republic. He was driven into exile by the British and the region became administered by the Anglo-Canadians. Following this, due to severe discrimination , many Métis people had to leave. Winnipeg has the largest urban Indigenous population in Canada, and the second-highest in North America after Anchorage. Alcohol is on
4 comments
Read more

Resilience: It’s not magic, we’re not born with it, so how do we get it?

What is it that makes an individual, a family, a community, a society, a nation, and a global citizenry thrive? Could it be resilience? If this is the case, we should be working out how to maximise it against all the odds. Today, in our society, the odds do seem to be against us. I spent the last week in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. For two days, I attended the 7 th annual psychological trauma and Juvenile Justice Conference. It is part of the initiative of the Trauma Informed Care Project from Orchard Place. The aim of the project is to spread the word and change the way we work. Quite literally, the project is working to educate people in understanding the enormity of the evidence of trauma and what we can all to understand recognise and respond to the effects of trauma. http://www.traumainformedcareproject.org/about.php The conference was run by the renowned Dr Bruce Perry, a neuroscientist and child psychiatrist and Dr Stuart Ablon, a child psychiatrist. Both emp
2 comments
Read more

‘We are all government people’

This blog is titled after a quote from Alanis Obomsawin, a distinguished Indigenous director and maker of the documentary, ‘We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice’, along with many others. I watched this particular one in Winnipeg, but its attention was directed toward the inappropriate decisions made by the centre of the Canadian government in Ottawa. The film explores how First Nation reserves have seen decades of underfunded essential services, which has systematically silenced and disempowered communities, entrenching collective pain and trauma.  Alanis spoke after the film. She was an inspiring force, fierce and energetic in her late 80s, and enthused by her own reflections of decades of work and activism. Her belief: when we all see ourselves as government people we applaud success, rectify wrongs, and change ineffective systems for the betterment of all. https://www.nfb.ca/film/we_can_t_make_the_same_mistake_twice/ In Australia, the last week has been of serious deba
4 comments
Read more