Update: Thank you to everyone for so much! We are so moved to reach our target in just 8 days with the support of over 1265 people! We are now able to take up this incredible opportunity to purchase this small parcel of land. Any extra funds we raise will help cover the stamp duty, council rates, a compost toilet… We will update you all on our plans and progress soon.
An incredible opportunity has arisen to purchase some culturally significant land back for the Nalderun Aboriginal community of Castlemaine, and so we can protect Me-Mandook Galk – the beautiful grandmother tree.
“This tree would have been around when my ancestors were around”.
– Uncle Rick Nelson, Dja Dja Wurrung Elder
Join with Mamunya – the friends of Nalderun Education Aboriginal Corporation – to raise $150,000 to purchase this important site.
The land will be owned by Nalderun, an Aboriginal organisation based in Castlemaine, on Dja Dja Wurrung lands in the Mt. Alexander Shire, Victoria. It provides education and advocacy in support of Aboriginal children, young people and families, and delivers training and support to the broader community on different ways we can see and be in the world. These ways hold and honour Country and bring about a sense of love and Community for all.
“It is now time to reconnect to this land, for the the Nalderun Aboriginal community it would be amazing to have a small parcel of land to call our own.”
– Uncle Rick Nelson, Dja Dja Wurrung Elder
The Aboriginal children in Nalderun’s ‘Meeting Place’ program are already benefiting from the teaching they receive from our Elders at an old, disused Primary School. The Kuli Business young men’s group and Tidda Business young women and non-binary folk group, as well as the First Nations Youth program currently in its third year, are all without their own base. Me-mandook Galk will also be there to share bush tucker knowledge, for our Indigenous landcare group, and soon, our training in conservation and land management through an Indigenous lens.
“Our children need ‘home’. They know they are the protectors and guardians of Country into tomorrow. In this place we feel our Ancestors, it is a place that needs protection and love. And to be shared so that all can experience what we and our kids feel and remember in every cell of our bodies. It’s like we can sing, dance and be with our Ancestors there.”
Kathryn Coff, Nalderun CEO.
The sense of belonging and connection can only accelerate when we are taught on Country by the Elders, and can learn to look after the land, overlooked by the Grandmother Tree.
Having a place where local Aboriginal people can develop a continuous connection to land they can always come back to is something local Dja Dja Wurrung people, and all other Aborginal and Torres Islander peoples, have not had since they were dispossessed by colonisation.
Our Elders have long dreamed of a place of this significance that is their own where they can feel safe and share their knowledge for the benefit of current and future generations.
“I saw Uncle Rick’s face out there on this land, and he said ‘make this happen Kath’.”
Kathryn Coff
Please support them to make this dream a reality!
