National Reconciliation Week

Each year National Reconciliation Week celebrates the rich culture and history of Indigenous Australians. It is an ideal time for us all to learn more about the culture and history of Australia's Indigenous people, and focus on reconciliation.

National Reconciliation Week will be held between 27 May and 3 June 2012, following National Sorry Day on Thursday 26 May. 

The theme for this year’s National Reconciliation Week is "Let's talk recognition". The University pledges our ongoing and unwavering support to building a better future for Indigenous Australians, as well as encouraging conversation around the importance of reconciliation and recognising Australia’s first peoples in the Constitution. 

Keep an eye out for events occurring across UWS campuses. 

UWS's commitment to reconciliation

Acknowledging this day in May 1998, the UWS community gathered in a special ceremony at Frogmore House and made a Reconciliation Statement, embracing the Council for Reconciliation's vision and highlighting the University's commitment to participate in the creation of a confident and harmonious nation where:

• we acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the original inhabitants of this continent and we recognise their loss of land, children, languages, health and kin
• we believe that Australia will only become a mature nation if the past is acknowledged, the present understood and the future confidently based on the co-existence of rights.

To mark the day we planted a eucalypt native to Western Sydney, in front of which a small plaque reads "May understanding and reconciliation grow with this tree".

This tree, having weathered drought and heatwaves, windstorms and hail, now stands at over six metres tall, and symbolises the strength of our commitment to practical reconciliation and to a future built on a recognition of the immense suffering of many Indigenous families and individuals, and on a conviction that we, as a nation, must do better.

UWS Yarramundi Lecture 2012

The University’s annual Yarramundi Lecture is a public event which was developed in 1997 by local Indigenous Elder and former employee of UWS, Pearl Wymarra, and has become central to the University's commitment to reconciliation activities. Each year a prominent Indigenous Australia is invited to present the lecture. The Yarramundi Lecture provides UWS and Greater Western Sydney communities a chance to embrace and support reconciliation. 

For more information on National Reconciliation week please visit www.reconciliation.org.au.