Blue Mountains Family Day Care held a successful ‘Caring for Country’ event during Children’s Week 2015 to promote Aboriginal cultural awareness.
In association with Muru Mittigar Aboriginal Cultural & Education Centre, the ‘Caring for Country’ event provided an opportunity for Family Day Care educators and children to deepen their understanding of Aboriginal culture in the Blue Mountains region.
Mayor, Councillor Mark Greenhill, said, “Caring for Country Day is a very practical way that the Blue Mountains Family Day Care community can increase their cultural awareness of our first peoples and encourage respectful acknowledgment among the children in their care.”
During the Caring for Country Day, educators and children learned about native bush plants used for food, medicine and other resources such as lemon myrtle (traditionally used for teas and spices) and paper bark trees (used for dressing wounds and as bush ‘cling wrap’). They also learned about useful plants for their own Family Day Care gardens.
Ms Claire Cable, of Familia Family Day Care in Blaxland, took advantage of the opportunity of the Caring for Country Day, saying, “The learning doesn’t stop at the end of the day. The children will continue to learn by nurturing these plants so they can be enjoyed by the children in my care, now and in the future.”
The recent ‘Australian Reconciliation Barometer’ from Reconciliation Australia showed that 83 percent of Australians believe it is important to know the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
