Big dreaming for Wiradjuri Centre

Indigenous community members performed a smoking ceremony - a cleansing process - to start the event and welcome everyone into the site in unity. 

“This is the oldest ceremony in the world and very important to the Aboriginal people,” David Newton said.

The Calarie Billaa group performed a series of dances, starting with a Wiradjuri welcome paying respects to the land and river. 

Students were invited to join in the dancing, representing animals coming to the river. 

In recent months there have been a number of improvements at the site, on Lake Forbes.

There is a new flagpole, mural, gazebo, dance stage and camp oven. 

The Dreaming Centre thanked Barrick Cowal, Northparkes mine and Forbes Shire Council for their contributions to the project and their assistance over the past year. 

Forbes Shire Council presented certificates of appreciation to Aileen Allen, Keirra Dargin-Nean, Peter Apps, Phil Hazell, Robert Buckman and Marlee Carr.

Aileen Allen said the volunteers who had worked on the site over recent months had done a fantastic job. Mrs Allen acknowledged Russell Hill, Billy Hill and Larry Towney for their work to initiate the Dreaming Centre. She said their work for the centre had only ceased when their work commitments took them away from Forbes. 

Mrs Allen said there was so much more planned for the Dreaming Centre, including a memorial pole to honour elders.

Now that the site is well set up, more regular events - cultural and educational - are in the planning. 

“We want to teach our history there, even though we are contemporary Aboriginal people,” Mrs Allen said.

She hopes the centre will be a place Koori and non-Koori people feel at home.