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Working and Learning
Stories about our working lives, education, and looking to the future.
The videos include excerpts from "Lady of the Lake"- Gunditjmara Elder Aunty Iris Lovett-Gardiner's accounts of Lake Condah Mission and Indigenous experiences there and excerpts from the film "Baranjuk" about Uncle Wally Cooper a Yorta Yorta Elder.
CULTURAL WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander users are warned that this material may contain images and voices of deceased persons, and images of places that could cause sorrow.
Film - Tim Kanoa, 'Life and Learning', Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI)
Courtesy of Australian Centre for the Moving Image and Tim Kanoa
Film - Tim Kanoa, 'Life and Learning', Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI)
Tim and I have had an absolute ball being your school captains this year. I hope we've done the right thing by all of you. This is a great school to be at and an absolute privilege to be the captains of, so I thank the people that put us here. It's just been amazing.
TIMMY KANOA (VOICEOVER): My life so far has been a life of learning, living, culture, and fun. I express my culture through dance and I have done so for many years. When I'm on stage dancing, I feel a great sense of pride I'm a Gunditjmara man. I love my culture and I'm proud of my Aboriginality.
Learning for me is a major part of my life. You actually do learn something every day. I started my life of learning the day I was born. I learned to see, hear, touch, smell, taste, and also steal my dad's money and smokes. I come from Portland on the coast in the Western district of Victoria. When I was in secondry college, I was still young and naive and had a lot to learn. As the years went on, I think instead of growing out of my naive ways, I stopped learning.
Moving out of home at the age of 16 was not a wise decision, but it was the only option I had at the time. Living with two cousins and no discipline, I had to fend for myself, drinking, partying, and not attending school. I failed year 11 and dropped out. I had time to think and make the choice to go back. It was the only way I was going to get anywhere in life. When I made it to year 12, there was no turning back. I was nominated to school captain and after the selection process, to my surprise, I was named school captain for 2004.
Mr. Burkeston, I have to say something serious. We're finishing school. That's serious. I've been here for too long. That's very serious. And I'm going to miss you all. That's serious, too, especially all the staff that helped me anyway. Thanks.
Now, I'm living in Melbourne pursuing my goals and ambitions. I'm still learning.
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Courtesy of Australian Centre for the Moving Image and Tim Kanoa
Tim Kanoa expresses his culture through dance. He is proud of his Aboriginality and has been living and learning from the day he was born.
Film - Richard Frankland and John Foss, 'Higher Education' (excerpt from Lady of the Lake), Koorie Heritage Trust
Courtesy of Koorie Heritage Trust
Film - Richard Frankland and John Foss, 'Higher Education' (excerpt from Lady of the Lake), Koorie Heritage Trust
The first one of our students is the oldest in our group and it's Aunty Iris Lovett Gardiner.
[AUDIENCE CLAPPING]
-I'd like to thank all the elders that are here. I would like to thank the... Wathaurong.
Wathaurong people. I would also like to for letting us study on their area, on their ground. And I'd like to thank the Wurundjeri too for letting us have this night on their ground. I'd also like to thank the university, Deakin, for having a course such as this so that we can all get an edumacation.
[LAUGHTER]
IRIS: The first thing was I thought I'd get into this school you know, just to see, to stop me from being just home bound, sort of thing. And ACES was doing all right, so I didn't have to rush backwards and forwards like. Then I sort of had nothing to do, you know what I mean, so I thought I'd go and get into this school.
So the next thing, we all finished our exams, and that was it. I got four HDs, I did. And that's high marks, four HDs. And then being 70, I think that was an achievement, you know. 70. Because my birthday was just before then. When I went home for me birthday party from here, when we graduated on that Saturday, and it was lovely.
But it's very impressive. It's very impressive. That first of all, all these teachers and deans and all that walk in. And they've got the mace there and all that sort of thing. And all that, and they go up onto the stage. The organ's playing there. It plays the university song, things like that. And then they start calling out, out the names, you know. And what made it more impressive, we wore our colors, Koorie colors around here, our necks like that, and beautiful.
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Lady of the Lake is the story of Gunditjmara Elder Aunty Iris Lovett-Gardiner and her life at Lake Condah in the western districts of Victoria. Here Aunty Iris talks about her education at Deakin University.
Film - Richard Frankland and John Foss, 'Domestic Work' (excerpt from Lady of the Lake), Koorie Heritage Trust
Courtesy of Koorie Heritage Trust
Film - Richard Frankland and John Foss, 'Domestic Work' (excerpt from Lady of the Lake), Koorie Heritage Trust
My first job was for 12/6 a week…an’ what a job.
It was housekeeping an’ I worked for this Chemist in Hamilton, his name was Mr Theobald…an’ him and his wife used to go down to go down to the shop…
I’d start work at half past seven in the morning, I’d give them a cup of tea in bed, then I’d make their breakfast, an’ then they’d get up…they’d have their breakfast and go to work an’ then I’d make the beds…do the beds and all that sort of cleaning up…an’ when they’d come home at lunch time I’d have their lunch an’ that ready…an’ then I’d go off at two o’clock till four…again to start cooking stuff for their tea.
12/6 a week I used to get and I’d give mum, 10 bob it was in those days, I’d give her the 10 bob for my board and have 2/6 me self to go to the pictures with…an’ you could get an ice-cream for about thruppence…one of those little ice-creams and a bottle of drink an’ that was my Saturday, you know. Worked Sunday, never stopped, only had one day off a week.
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Lady of the Lake is the story of Gunditjmara Elder Aunty Iris Lovett-Gardiner and her life at Lake Condah in the western districts of Victoria.
In Domestic Work she talks about the work she and other Lake Condah women and girls were employed in.
Writer/director Richard Frankland
Produced by John Foss
Sponsored by The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission
Print - F. A. Sleap and G. R. Ashton, 'Reminiscences of Early Melbourne', June 25 1887, Supplement to the Illustrated Australian News (Melbourne)
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Colonial anecdotes of rescues, ferrying, trade and transport using Aboriginals’skills and Aboriginal bark canoes, are coated in the colonial perspectives of the writers, but show a depth and diversity of interactions on Victoria’s rivers between Aboriginal and non Aboriginal Australians.
They tell that humble bark canoes, and the people who made them and navigated them, saved people’s lives and helped make Victoria prosperous.
The knowledge of colonial Victoria’s reliance on Aboriginal people’s skills and technology fell out of historical accounts in the 20 century, untaught and forgotten. But the diaries, letters, journals and manuscripts still tell the story if we take the time to read them.
Wood engraving published in Supplement to the 'Illustrated Australian News'. Melbourne : David Syme and Co. June 25, 1887.
Victorian Collections acknowledges the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
peoples as the first inhabitants of the nation and the traditional custodians of the lands
where we live, learn and work.