When
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Why
Family Fun Day to Reflect. Respect. Celebrate all that's great about Australia and its 65,000+ year history.
For the past five years of the success of this event, the Justice Aunties are proud to again welcome the wider community to the AwabaMi Festival.
This free public event, in partnership with sponsors, will return to Foreshore Park, Newcastle on 26 January.
AwabaMi is an invitation for all to bring along their friends, family and a picnic blanket to engage in meaningful reconciliation through truth-telling, performances, open dialogue, and historical acceptance.
Awabakal/ Geawegal woman Aunt Tracey and University of Newcastle Law undergraduate said "the event is a powerful opportunity for the Awabakal, Worimi, Mooloobinba (Lake Macquarie and Newcastle) and Hunter communities to come together.
AwabaMi is an incredibly special event, we hope everyone is able to rally together, come down and join us for a family-friendly day of reflection and celebration.
The word AwabaMi translates from joining the words Awabakal and Worimi to recognise the Aboriginal lands in which we will sit, listen, and know, and I think that truly captures the essence of the safe space we’re trying to create, with the help of our amazing event partners.
More than 5,000 people attended last year’s event.
Held on Australia Day, it is a day of reflection that aims to consider traditional life before 1788 and was inspired by Sydney’s Yabun event that has been running for the past 20 years.
AwabaMi Festival aims to bring together Australian ways of ancient and modern ways. Recognising, mourning and celebrating both cultures history together.
The program includes a smoking ceremony, welcome to country, traditional dance, Aboriginal musicians and singers, storytelling, and knowledge sharing, Aboriginal businesses and craft stalls, Markets and Food stalls.
Plenty of entertainment for kids and adults please bring cash as well as card as some stall holders only accept cash.
It will feature performances from award-winning First nations artists, performers, and speakers from around Awabakal, Worimi, and NSW.
AwabaMi celebrates the rich culture of all First Nations people, in particular the Awabakal and Worimi people, the traditional owners of the land upon which Newcastle now stands.
For us to change as a nation, we need to rally and come together and learn from one another and it’s events like this that create progress.
“It was so great to see the huge turn out last year and I know it will continue to grow and grow.”
of cultural knowledge will ensure we have an even better future,” Lord Mayor Nelmes said.
Growing numbers and the exemplary event show how Newcastle is celebrating a strong, continuing culture and leading the way in Indigenous community engagement.
AwabaMi will be an event for unity and togetherness for our Hunter region and
I invite the community to join us at the AwabaMi Festival where there will be a valuable opportunity to connect with, and learn from, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.