It’s official, the ribbon has been cut and the Munarra Centre of Regional Excellence is open for business.
On Wednesday, August 7, close to, if not over, 500 people crowded around the newly built centre to commemorate its opening.
The day’s events started in the middle of the Rumbalara Football field - where Wulumbarra Dancers and a smoking ceremony by Elder Dixie Patton led attendees over the bridge to the new centre.
The walk marked a symbolic gesture incorporating the acknowledgment of the 1939 Cummeragunja walk off and the future of young Indigenous Australians, as Kaiela Institute Executive Chair and Deputy Chair of Munarra Elder Paul Briggs AO explained.
“The walk is a walk to the future, crossing that blue bridge it’s a very symbolic relationship between the Rumbalara Football Netball Club, our history and the journey of the Munarra Centre of Excellence in the future of our people and the education and Indigenous knowledge attainment,” Uncle Paul said.
“We want to instil language reclamation, yorta yorta language reclamation, cultural heritage reclamation, ceremonial reclamation.
“It is all a part of what the Munarra Centre stands for alongside western education, tertiary, secondary, primary education and the pursuit of knowledge.
“It’s a very special moment today.”
The centre will offer pathways-based education for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people with Yorta-Yorta knowledge and culture embedded in its curriculum and a home for an expanded Academy for Sports, Health and Education.
Throughout the ceremony, representatives from Munarra, the University of Melbourne, the state government and Kaiela Institute spoke on the genesis and history of the project, educational programs offered by the centre, the design and construction of the building and the story behind its artwork.
The project is a collaboration between the Kaiela Institute, Rumbalara Football Netball Club and the University of Melbourne.
The centre was funded with a $30 million investment from the State Government and a further $6.64 million from the University of Melbourne and built by Indigenous-owned company TVN On-Country.
It is the largest amount of funding ever awarded to a First Nations owned and operated company by the government to date.
The building, which boasts an impressive aesthetic design, state-of-the-art teaching facilities, yarning rooms, an Elders’ lounge, and child-friendly study area, is designed to offer pathways-based education with a focus on Yorta-Yorta knowledge and culture in its curriculum.
The ceremony finished off with a snip of the scissors on a woven belt in lieu of the common ribbon, by the Minister for Treaty and First Peoples, Natalie Hutchins and Elder Briggs to officially open the centre.
Attendees and Elders were then walked through the building to see the end of the project.
Watch what Uncle Paul Briggs had to share about the meaning and history of the area and benefits of the Munarra Centre for the community below as well as News photographer Megan Fisher’s full gallery from the day.