Wonderful to see one of our First Nations students, Grace T. of Year 8, providing a ‘Welcome to Country’ to open the Herne Hill Primary Cultural fair last Friday.
For those unsure about the difference between “Welcome to Country’ and an “Acknowledgement of Country’, an acknowledgement may be made by any person to acknowledge the long-standing connection to the land of our First Nations peoples.
A “Welcome” on the other hand is a ceremony performed by Traditional Owners of the land and/or sea where an event is taking place to welcome visitors. A Welcome to Country can therefore only be performed by an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander person with ancestral ties to the place where the welcome takes place. As Grace has ancestral ties to the land of the Wathaurong people, she was able to perform this Welcome, using some phrases from the Wathaurong language in doing so.
