NAIDOC Week is an emotional time for Aunty Judi Wickes.
The Wakka Wakka-Kalkadoon woman and long-term Indigenous Services staff member at the University of the Sunshine Coast was the driving force behind the first NAIDOC Week celebrations to be held in the region in 2003.
“NAIDOC Week is important to all Australians – not just Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,” Aunty Judi said of the latest festivities.
“We need to come together on this. We’re all sisters and brothers.
“It’s a celebration for all citizens of this country.”
- Related story: NAIDOC Week 2021 celebrations on the Sunshine Coast
Aunty Judi, a social worker who provides counselling support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at the university, said NAIDOC Week provided an important opportunity to recognise the trans-generational trauma suffered by Indigenous people.
This is a topic she has researched extensively after learning that her grandfather received a “certificate of exemption”, under a government policy that continued until 1967, with the guise of allowing Aboriginal people to live in a “white man’s world”.
Aunty Judi, who holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and a Master of Arts from USC, said while the exemptions offered legal freedoms denied to other Indigenous people – such as the ability to travel freely and live and work where they wanted – they had a serious downside.
The exemptions required certificate holders to renounce their culture and heritage, which led to significant breakdowns in family and cultural connections – with the ramifications still being felt today.
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One of Aunty Judi’s articles about exemptions is featured in Black, White and Exempt, a new book co-edited by La Trobe University academics Dr Jennifer Jones and Dr Lucinda Aberdeen (previously from USC).
Aunty Judi will speak on this topic at the Second Rethinking and Researching 20th Century Aboriginal Exemption Symposium that will be hosted by USC and La Trobe University in late October.
