19 December, 2014
“I think one of the highlights of the Land Council was the repatriation of remains.”
Yaegl Local Aboriginal Land Council has run a number of projects in the past including an Aboriginal women’s camp for 4 days.
Yaegl LALC CEO Noeline Kapeen says the camp, which was attended by girls, mothers and elders from Yamba and McLean was very successful.
“It involved learning about their culture, telling stories, going around seeing the local sites, cooking for their families, arts and craft” she said.
Service providers were also invited to the camp to speak to the women about health, domestic violence, gambling problems and legal rights.
“We need to stamp out not only the bullying but the domestic violence, there’s a lot of alcohol, a lot of drugs so we need to target those areas as well” Noeline said.
Yaegl LALC is also working with one of the job network providers to empower younger job seekers with the aim of creating an opportunity for them to go back to country to Ulgundahi Island and start a vegetable garden to sell to local stores in McLean and surrounding areas.
Ms Kapeen says the highlight for Yaegl LALC was the repatriation of remains.
Local elder, Aunty Lenore Parker, travelled to Vienna on behalf of Yaegl LALC to collect the remains and bring them back home to Australia.
In a moving ceremony, Aunty Lenore along with the remains was welcomed home by family at Sydney airport before making the final leg of the journey back to country where a bigger community ceremony was held.
“We had four remains bought home and everybody was just overwhelmed. The communities from both Yamba and McLean came together to honour our ancestors and the feeling here was just overwhelming” Ms Kapeen said.