The Pauline McLeod Awards for Reconciliation

All sorts of contributions can make a difference in the Reconciliation process. The Pauline McLeod Awards for Reconciliation give our community an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements big and small of local people and organisations.

Through her work as a cultural educator, Pauline McLeod led and inspired Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians towards understanding, acceptance and healing. The Pauline McLeod Awards honour her legacy.

The Pauline McLeod Awards are sponsored by the Eastern Region Local Government Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Forum. Each year the Forum confers two Awards upon people or organisations living or working in its region: City of Botany Bay, City of Sydney, Leichhardt, Randwick City, Waverley or Woollahra.

Reconciliation Awards 2009

• The Pauline McLeod Youth Award is open to individuals 12-24 living, working or studying in the region, or organisations working for young people, and
• The Pauline McLeod Award is open to individuals of any age living, working or studying in the region, or organisations.

Nominations close 4 May 2009.

Nomination Form (PDF File, 204.35kb)

Reconciliation Week Primary Schools Art Competition

Living and Working, Learning and Playing Together
The aim of the Reconciliation Week Primary Schools Art Competition is to raise awareness of Reconciliation, and to enable children to consider and express what it means for them. The theme for the 2009 competition is: Living and Working, Learning and Playing Together.

The Competition is open to Primary Schools in the local government areas of: City of Botany Bay, City of Sydney, Leichhardt, Randwick City, Waverley and Woollahra.

Schools are invited to submit up to twelve entries comprising three entries in each of the following four categories:

• Individual – kindergarten - year 2
• Individual – years 3 - 4
• Individual – years 5 - 6
• Group – age open

Entries in the individual categories must be physical visual art forms – drawings, paintings, photos or sculptures. Entries in the Group category may also include multi-media works, including digital videos of up to 90 seconds.

A prize will be awarded for the best entry in each of the three individual categories, and the school submitting the winning group entry will receive a cash prize of $500. Prizes will be presented at the Pauline McLeod Awards Ceremony to be held 27 May, and all of the entries will be exhibited at the event. Selected entries will be included in a touring exhibition. The Forum will also produce a certificate of participation for award to individual students by participating schools.

Each entry must carry the entry form attached. Schools must register their intent to participate, and entries must be available for collection from the school’s front desk on Wednesday 8 and Thursday 9 April 2009.

To register, or find out more about the Reconciliation Week School Art Competition, please contact Leisa Simmons 9386 7912 or email leisas@waverley.nsw.gov.au

Entry Form (PDF File, 201.72kb)

Pauline McLeod Awards Ceremony

The 2009 Pauline McLeod Awards Ceremony will be hosted by the City of Botany Bay. The Ceremony coincides with Reconciliation Week and will be held from 4:00pm to 6:00pm, Thursday 28 May at the Eastlakes Community Centre.

The evening celebrates the achievements of individuals in our community working to further reconciliation, and the efforts of primary school students in creating art works that reflect the spirit of reconciliation.

The Ceremony will be brought alive by students from the Talent Development Project, Australia’s most successful and respected entertainment industry training program.

Everyone is welcome.

Recognised in previous years

The winners of the 2008 Pauline McLeod awards for reconciliation were
Ann and Ted Robinson and the Tamarama Surf Lifesaving Club jointly for the ‘Holly Days’ Program
(Nominated by Peter O'Hara and Tracey Cooley)
The ‘Holly Days’ program has been a successfully developing Surf Lifesaving and Life Skills Program organised by Ann and Ted Robinson in loving memory of their daughter ‘Holly’ and run by the community of volunteers at Tamarama Surf Lifesaving Club. La Perouse kids have been encouraged by the ‘Holly Days’ Surf and Life Skills Nippers Program to overcome shyness and to grow in confidence and in interacting with the surf community, and some participants have been motivated to go on and work at accomplishing the skills needed for the ‘Bronze Medallion’ in Surf Lifesaving.

Pauline McLeod Youth Award 2008
Craig Ashby
(Nominated by Randwick Council)
Craig is currently a 3rd year university student studying a Bachelor of Education – at the same time Craig is a Project Officer with the National Aboriginal Sporting Chance Academy (NACSA). Alongside studies and work, Craig volunteers for a number of different charitable and other organisations working with youth, the homeless and other disadvantaged people, and the Catholic community more broadly. He is also a board member of the NSW Reference Group for Indigenous students attending boarding schools. Craig has worked in Redfern and Waterloo, volunteering at schools and mentoring a number of Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth. He has also travelled to central Australia to communities such as Papunya as part of the ARMtour Program. As an indigenous youth of Walgett, Craig understands the importance of education and positive role models.

Pauline McLeod Award 2008
Gillian Fisher
(Nominated by ESORA)
About 10 years ago Gillian Fisher thought the wider community should have a better understanding of Aboriginal history, culture and experience. Gillian approached the Eastern Suburbs Community College in Bondi. She suggested an Aboriginal studies course with 9 Indigenous speakers and 9 topics. The idea came to fruition. The course became known as ‘Building Bridges – Reconciliation through Understanding’. The course is going strong with 3 terms a year. We know that several hundred people have done the course with some coming back a second time.

Reconciliation Week Primary Schools Art Competition 2008

• Junior Winner: Madeline Dawkins from South Coogee Public for We’re All in this Together
• Junior Runner Up: Ben Yeoh from OLR Kensington for Playing together in our Neighbourhood
• Senior Winner: Bronte Dean from Bronte Public for Hand in Hand
  
• Group Winner: La Perouse Public School for Reconciliation our Neighbourhood
• Group Highly Commended: Orange Grove Public School for Playing and Working Together
• Group Highly Commended: Woollahra Public School for Cooper Park Woollahra
  
  

About Pauline McLeod

“Everyone in Australia knows the stories of Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood, yet … Australians do not know one dreaming story”.

A member of the Stolen Generation, taken from her family in Delegate NSW as a two year old in 1962, Pauline McLeod would have to wait until 1986 when, working as one of the first Aboriginal District Officers to be employed by the NSW Department of Youth and Community Services, she was able to access her files and reunite with her birth family.

It was after this reunion that she left her government job and pursed a career in entertainment, studying at Redfern’s Eora Centre for Performing Art, and establishing the theatre group ‘Kooris in Theatre’. She fast became one of the county’s most versatile entertainers who used her skills in storytelling to preserve the Dreaming stories of Aboriginal people, passing them on to all Australian children through her work on Playschool, and visits to education institutes. Through her work as a cultural educator in schools, universities and TAFEs she pursued reconciliation through the breakdown of barriers and stereotypes.

As well as her performance work, both on screen and onstage, she wrote plays, poetry and short stories. It was her dream that children in Australia would know the dreamtime stories as well as they knew Cinderella.

The wealth of knowledge that she possessed and passed on to others fostered understanding of Indigenous heritage and culture and their role in Australia’s national history and identity. Pauline McLeod passed away in May 2003, aged 43, from complications associated with rheumatic fever. A trailblazer, both in her welfare work and then in her efforts towards reconciliation, she will be remembered for having led and inspired Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians towards understanding, acceptance and healing.

Throughout this doom and gloom
There was a shining light
A story my brother told
From the Dreaming late one night
It gave me hope once again
The beauty that shone through
To share the stories with others
Telling them culturally, entertainingly
And true

Pauline McLeod

Sources
http://www.theblackbook.com.au/inspiration_detail.asp?id=9
http://www.australianstorytelling.org.au/txt/mcleod.php
http://www.asgmwp.net/Elimatta%20Winter%202003.pdf

Holly Catt
Community Development Coordinator
Telephone: 9391 7058
Fax: 9397 7044
Email: holly.catt@woollahra.nsw.gov.au