NATIONAL TALK BLACK – 12/02/2025
On todays National Talk Black via NIRS – National Indigenous Radio Service we have:
Honorary Professor Ann Curthoys AM, an original Freedom Rider, talking about her experience 60 years on from the 1965 Freedom Ride and how it shaped the nation. Around midnight on 12 February 1965, 29 University of Sydney students set off on a two‑week bus trip. It was a time when First Nations people were excluded from public pools, hotels, cinemas and Returned Services League (RSL) clubs — and often forced to live in reserves on the edge of country towns. Led by Aboriginal activist and fellow Sydney student the late Charles Perkins, the group, which called itself Student Action for Aborigines (SAFA), wanted to see the reality of living conditions for themselves and to challenge racial segregation practices. Now a historian at the University of Sydney, Professor Ann AM, author of Freedom Ride: A Freedom Rider Remembers, recorded these events in her diary. The students were also confronted by the poor housing and health experienced by Aboriginal people. In each town, they conducted surveys to understand the situation. Some Aboriginal people were supportive; others greeted them with apprehension. Two years later, Australians voted overwhelmingly ‘Yes’ in the 1967 Referendum which gave the Commonwealth power to make laws for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and removed discriminatory references from the Constitution, enabling them to be counted in the census. The Freedom Ride was also one of several precursors to increased land rights.
https://www.sydney.edu.au/…/how-the-freedom-ride-shaped…
Alfred and Caesar Hunter, Djabugay Aboriginal Corporations Djabugay Bulmba Rangers, talking about how rangers have made finding platypus their ngunba one priority. A new project using AI helped the Djabugay Bulmba Rangers in North Queensland identify the shy creatures at three sites. In the Djabugay language, they call it Ngunbay, the land of the platypus and ngunba is the platypus. Platypus had not been seen for more than 60 years until a project designed by the Djabugay Bulmba Rangers, combining traditional knowledge and AI, captured the shy creatures on camera last year. The platypus search was part of ‘Eyes on Country’, a First Nations-led project established by the World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia with funding support from Google.org. In partnership with ‘Eyes on Country’, 11 Indigenous groups across Australia are designing monitoring programs that combine ancient knowledge with the latest technologies such as trail cameras, Wildlife Insights (which uses Google-powered Artificial Intelligence to identify species in images), environmental DNA, and drones. The the Djabugay Bulmba Rangers set up trail cameras – focused on Flaggy Creek and surrounding waterways north west of Kuranda – to search for ngunba. They had not been seen in Flaggy Creek for decades and no-one knew if they were still there, especially after Cyclone Jasper caused intense flooding in December 2023. On top of that, there were 400,000 images to trawl through – but, thanks to technology, within the first hour, the project team found four images of the same ngunba swimming at the edge of the creek.
https://www.sbs.com.au/…/rangers-make-finding…/dmzchbyje
Mary G and Dr Mark Bin Bakar, Social, Emotional, Wellbeing and Health Change Agents, talking about how the Mary G Enterprises and the Mary G Foundation is providing Specialised and Culturally Appropriate Services Equating To Culturally And Socially Appropriate Outcomes. Mary G Enterprises and its main consultants Dr Mark Bin Bakar and his alter ego/performer Mary G has established itself within the national arena as a credible and safe consultant to provide tools, messages and awareness of the many diverse issues that affect everyone in our communities in particularly the Indigenous community. Their services have been well respected, utilised and has complemented the many campaigns that accumulate as social and health issues. They offer for your organisation, department, state or community, specialised services that really work in getting the messages across. They provide two options that can assist you in rolling out your program for the betterment of one’s constituents, clients or community. One is the Mary G Enterprises which is a PTY LTD company and also the not for profit Mary G Foundation. The latter being given the endorsed status as a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) by the Australian Taxation Department. This generally is a more suitable option to doing good business for corporate and government investments in social responsibilities. You can find out more, on the link below!
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