Learning Circle: What we've learned through intercultural work

Batman's Treaty with the Aborigines at Merri Creek by John Wesley Burtt, circa 1875.

Batman's Treaty with the Aborigines at Merri Creek by John Wesley Burtt, circa 1875.

The Indigenous Hospitality House is a learning community inviting people on a shared journey of cultural healing and growth in light of stolen land. Learning Circles are an oppotunity to reflect on what we have been learning by offering hospitality to Indigenous people. At our first Learning Circle for 2016, Matt Bell will be helping us explore what the IHH has learned about our own cultures and about Indigenous cultures through shared hospitality. Feel free to join us for dinner from 7:00pm. We plan to start our discussion at 8:00pm.
If you are planning to come, please let us know by emailing house@ihh.org.au

Creating a Learning Community

In July 2015, despite efforts made to recruit new people, the IHH dropped to only four residents.  We decided therefore not to host hospital guests in Term Three. Instead we used the time to review our community engagement strategies, and put some energy into hosting events and making connections with local mobs and people that would extend our networks and strengthen support for the project and the residents.  

It has a been a rich and nourishing time!

We hosted visitors from several churches and organisations including Whitley College, L’Arche, Urban Seed and the Railway House Reconciliation and Respect group; caught up with IHH alumni; ran a series of conversations on Everyday Spirituality and a Bible study on Lamentations; and held a Cancer Council Pancake Brunch.

We worked on a community engagement plan with Dusk Liney from Inspirit Creative, and got some conflict resolution training from Shawn Whelan.

We represented the IHH at several conferences and gatherings including the TEAR Gathering, the ‘Teach Anything Good’ day at the new Kathleen Syme library in Carlton, and a ‘Forming Disciples in Mission’ colloquium at the Melbourne Korean church.

We walked a prayer labyrinth, sang songs and told stories at the Church of All Nations to celebrate and strengthen our partnership of nearly 15 years!

We attended various cultural activities such as the Ngarrindjeri postcolonial conversation with Ken Sumner (the chair of Congress in Victoria), a Coranderrk mission visit during Wurundjeri week, a workshop on Aboriginal languages run by Mandy Nicholson from VACL, and Yarnin’ films at the Footscray Arts Centre.

This time has been an investment in the second part of IHH’s purpose: to be a place where we can help people explore what it means for their identity and faith in practice to be non-Indigenous people living on Aboriginal land.  This is the gift of being involved at the IHH for residents, but also for visiting volunteers, those on our Business Committee and others who have the opportunity to share the stories and join in the learning journey we are all on.

In 2016, we have new residents coming on board, but we will also be opening up more ways for people to be part of our learning community without having to move in. 

Stay tuned!

Sharing food and stories in Unit Two.

Sharing food and stories in Unit Two.

Clare Landy talks about her book Decolonising Solidarity with the Railway House Respect and Reconciliation group at IHH.

Clare Landy talks about her book Decolonising Solidarity with the Railway House Respect and Reconciliation group at IHH.

Uncle David Wandin at Coranderrk Cemetery during Wurundjeri Week.

Uncle David Wandin at Coranderrk Cemetery during Wurundjeri Week.

Lamentations Bible Study

In term three the IHH community gathered around the Biblical book of Lamentations and read it in light of our own context at the house and the broader Australian context. We found that the story of the Israelite people and their prolonged suffering at the hands of invaders could be related to the suffering of Indigenous people in our own country. We were also challenged by the idea of needing to sit in the tension of difficult circumstances and become better acquainted with our own pain and the pain of others. The realisation that the book of Lamentations offers no resolve to the circumstances faced by the people of Israel is at once confronting and also honest to our shared human experience.

It was a valuable time of learning together. I'm looking forward to sharing more of these spaces to engage with the Bible and current events in the near future. I would invite all those interested in learning more to keep an eye on our website, Facebook page and emails for the next opportunity to come along and join in!

 

This is one of the texts that we read alongside the book of Lamentations, Oodgeroo Noonuccal's 'We Are Going':

They came in to the little town
A semi-naked band subdued and silent
All that remained of their tribe. 
They came here to the place of their old bora ground
Where now the many white men hurry about like ants. 
Notice of the estate agent reads: 'Rubbish May Be Tipped Here'. 
Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring. 
'We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers. 
We belong here, we are of the old ways. 
We are the corroboree and the bora ground, 
We are the old ceremonies, the laws of the elders. 
We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told. 
We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires. 
We are the lightening bolt over Gaphembah Hill
Quick and terrible, 
And the Thunderer after him, that loud fellow. 
We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon. 
We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back as the camp fires burn low. 
We are nature and the past, all the old ways
Gone now and scattered. 
The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter. 
The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this place. 
The bora ring is gone. 
The corroboree is gone. 
And we are going.