The workshop sessions were invaluable, providing a context for students to understand the thousands of years of complex story within the song. The whole school community was moved by the students singing your "Thank You For The Welcome' songThais Sanson, Castlemaine PS
Jan has done something special here. The song with its message of thank you and acknowledgment of Country should be taken up by all schools. It provides an important way, through music, that we can better understand our place in this land.Ron Murray - Wamba Wamba storyteller & musician
For Australian history: Wominjeka means 'welcome' in the Wurundjeri and Dja Dja Wurrung languages of Melbourne and central Victoria, and in this workshop Jan 'Yarn' Wositzky teaches a song of respect for Indigenous people.
Within this musical experience the students come to hear and understand many stories of black-white contact and welcoming, conflict and reconciliation, including:
- How Indigenous ceremonies compare with our customs of welcome and laws of visas and
passports
- Aborigines and First Fleet soldiers dancing together
- The Woiwurrung welcome for John Batman when he came in 1835 to "purchase' the land
that is now Melbourne
- Jan's personal experiences with Aboriginal people, their hospitality and welcomes
For this workshop Jan 'Yarn' Wositzky draws on his many book, radio, film, CD and music projects with Indigenous Australians, as well as from thorough research.
Students learn about respect for other cultures and to take responsibility, without guilt, for our history.
How it works:
Jan teaches students to sing the song titled Thank You for the Welcome To Your Country, tells the stories embedded in the lyrics, discusses the issues with students, asks students for their ways of welcome and compares with Indigenous customs (sometimes very similar), and at the end of the workshop the song is recorded to CD, which the school keeps.
Schools may use the song later in concerts and other occasions, and as a dignified response to Indigenous Welcome to Country.
We'll send you the song to learn on booking.
Participation
Everyone sings and makes suggestions about their own ways of welcoming.
Your idea to dedicate a work of thanks in response to the Jarra Welcome to Country was thoughtful and progressive. The occasion was moving and profound.Martin Paten"۬Festival Director, Castlemaine State Festival
The best Welcome to Country I have ever experienced.Lynne Kosky, Minister for the Arts, Victorian Government, 2009
We thank you for engaging the students in such rich sessions of storytelling - inspiring dignity, awareness, understanding and appreciation as well as lots of laughs!Castlemaine South Primary School
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