A team consisting of police officers and First Nations youths made history at the postponed 2022 Massive Murray Paddle race.
Eight weeks out from the event, 11 First Nations youths from Deniliquin, aged between 12 and 17, formed a team with police officers and supervisors.
The name of the team, Marrang Tyema, means to paddle or canoe to find and to discover, in one of the local First Nations languages.
Murray River Police District Aboriginal liaison officer Luke Egan came up with the idea, in an effort to strengthen the relationship between police and First Nations youths.
The concept was received so positively that the Yarkuwa Indigenous Knowledge Centre, Deniliquin Local Aboriginal Land Council, Moama Bowling Club and Transport for New South Wales all jumped on as sponsors of the team.
The team even garnered strong interest from the young people.
“It’s about closing the gap between police and Aboriginal youths,” Mr Egan said.
In what was a pretty remarkable sight, officers from the Murray River Police District followed closely behind the team in a police boat on one of the days, offering words of encouragement.
Each child was paired up with a supervising adult for the duration of the race.
Keisha Egan from the Yarkuwa Indigenous Knowledge Centre was one of the supervising adults to jump in the kayak with the kids.
She said it had been amazing to see a bond form not only between police officers and kids but between the children themselves.
“Hopefully this is the first of many and we can continue to grow this initiative,” Mrs Egan said.
“Everybody has really come together to work as a team and motivate each other.
“Even when I was losing momentum, one of the paddlers that I was with in the kayak started supporting and encouraging me to keep going. She’s 12 years old.”
With only eight weeks to prepare for the week-long 415km race, the team has had to learn most things on the fly.
The first few days were a huge wake-up call for the team members, in terms of how much effort goes into preparing for each leg of the race, but with each day that has passed, they have improved their organisational skills significantly.
Over the course of the week, each team completed, on average, more than 80km per day.
Travelling such a long distance at such a young age is a true testament to the mental and physical strength of the 12- to 17-year-olds.
Tyron Ross, one of the youths that participated, was not expecting the journey to be as physically demanding as it was, but said he would absolutely consider taking on the challenge again, given the chance.
“It just shows you how much your body can do,” he said.
“I’ve just really enjoyed getting out with everybody.”
Nobody can deny that the Marrang Tyema team is an inspiration.
We hope to see the young kayakers participate in future Massive Murray Paddle events because this feels like the beginning of something very special.