Honouring Elders with Launceston NAIDOC service

Ever-deepening ties between the Launceston Salvation Army, and the Launceston-based Aboriginal Elders Council of Tasmania, will enrich the first 2023 NAIDOC Week Launceston Salvos church service, according to Tasmanian-based Salvation Army Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Divisional Coordinator and Engagement Support Worker, Belinda Farley-Wills.

Local Elders and a range of community groups, politicians, churches and community members have been invited, with a Welcome to Country to be offered by a local Aboriginal Elder. The service will be part of NAIDOC Week (2-9 July) activities at the Salvos Launceston, which will include a cultural craft and yarning time during the week for all to enjoy, including community members and staff from The Salvation Army.

Launceston Salvation Army head (Corps Officer) Roderick Brown, says he and his wife, Kelly, have been privileged to be invited regularly to events held at the Aboriginal Elders Council of Tasmania and that the deepening relationships have been extremely positive.

“The church service and events are really about helping bring community together in celebration of NAIDOC Week and indigenous culture,” he says. “Reconciliation week, NAIDOC and building connections are part of the continuing work of reconciliation.”

“I think that we have to commit to understand more deeply, share stories, pay respect to Elders, personally, and seek unity.”

NAIDOC Salvos celebration

Launceston-based Belinda Farley-Wills, a Palawa woman of the Trawlwoolway Nation of Lutrawita (Tasmania), has worked closely with the Launceston Corps Officer and Ministry Assistant to organise the NAIDOC Week 2023 ‘For Our Elders’ Sunday service and other NAIDOC events. She says that the 2023 NAIDOC theme, ‘For our Elders’, is a fitting theme, honouring and celebrating those who offer wisdom and strength to the community.

“Honouring our Elders by listening is so very important, because every year that goes by, there are Elders missing, those we have lost, and with them goes their knowledge and wisdom which is why sharing and teaching is of the utmost importance to keep our culture thriving,” she says.

For Belinda, the title of ‘Elder’ is more than a title of age, it is a title that befits a community leader, young or old.

“To me, an ‘Elder’ is not only a title earned with age, but in my mind can also be anybody in the community that is willing to share, willing to teach, willing to learn and serve as a role model.

“We have heaps of people in their 30s and 40s, who are doing amazing things to promote and showcase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and culture in areas like Welcome to Country, traditional dance, palawa kani (Tasmanian Aboriginal language). In my mind, they are Elders in the community too.”

Building cultural and community connection

Belinda said over the past few years, The Salvation Army space has also grown ever more welcoming and culturally sensitive to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

She said, “It's so heartwarming for me at the Launceston Salvation Army site to walk in and see three full length flags – the Aboriginal flag, the Torres Strait Islander flag and the Australian flag – hung side by side in the centre’s foyer.

Belinda said the church service and NAIDOC activities also serve to meet outcomes of The Salvation Army Reconciliation Action (RAP) which was guided by The Salvation Army’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ministry team and signed off by Reconciliation Australia, as well as The Salvation Army board. The RAP helps guide The Salvation Army’s engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and reconciliation initiatives.

“It is not only the Launceston Salvos’ corps (church) which is on this journey to Reconciliation, both the Devonport, Scottsdale Salvation Army Corps are also working to honour and build ties with local Aboriginal Elders and communities,” she says.

Hope out of heartbreak

As one of 17 children, at the age of 10-months, Belinda was forcibly removed and then fostered and adopted. She and her siblings, she understands, were the last children forcibly removed as part of “the Stolen Generation” in Tasmania.

Despite the pain of the past, Belinda has a passion to see trust and understanding grow.

“Our local Elders have embraced the Salvos’ Corps Officers. There is great mutual respect and it has built greater understanding and deepened trust in the community,” she says.

“Our hope for the future is to build deeper, meaningful relationships based on mutual trust, respect and celebration of our diversity, which should bring us closer together. If we truly care, we should be committed to being informed. And we are best informed through building trusted relationships with each other. It is relationship which is key."