g-oz Alumni Inspires Young Girls of Halls Creek
g-oz Alumni Inspires Young Girls of Halls Creek When we began our Community Program delivery to Halls Creek in 2010 we met Sophia Gumpoltsberger, an energetic and enthusiastic g-oz participant from day one. Highlights of Sophia’s time with us include: Meeting Dame Quentin Bryce AC DVO who was the Governor-General at that time and visited Halls Creek at our invitation in May 2010, Participating…
Term 1 Community Program News
Term 1 Community Program News Community leaders, teachers and of course all of our g-oz participants were delighted to see 2021 start so positively. After a year in which border shutdowns made the delivery of our community programs a huge challenge, we were thrilled to have teams visit Carnarvon, Halls Creek, Lockhart River and Kowanyama during Term 1. Our experienced g-oz Instructors were over…
Girls from Oz 2020 Term 4 Newsletter
Girls from Oz 2020 Term 4 Newsletter Welcome to Term 4! After our programs had to be cancelled in term 2 due to COVID-19 we experienced an incredible Giving Circles fundraising campaign in June and now it is a joy to be able to return to delivering our usual programs with state-based Instructor teams from across Australia. Read all about what’s taking place in…
A year of silver linings: De Castro sisters travel to Lockhart River
In what has been a tumultuous time for arts education, and the arts more broadly, Girls from Oz is delighted to return to Carnarvon, Halls Creek and Lockhart River in Term 3 to deliver their first 2020 community performing arts programs since early March. With interstate Instructors unable to cross borders into Queensland and Western Australia due to COVID-19 restrictions, g-oz took the decision to have all Term 3 programs delivered entirely by state-based teams. While this will mark the…
Reflecting on past NAIDOC Celebrations
In 2020, NAIDOC Week that is normally celebrate in July, has been postponed until November. NAIDOC stands for National Aboriginies and Islanders Day Observance Committee, and is a week that celebrates the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Each year a theme is chosen to highlight important issues and achievements of Aboriginal people. We’re so excited that our trip to Halls Creek later this month will coincide with the school’s NAIDOC celebrations and it’s prompted…
A chance to walk with each other during restricted times
Girls from Oz has been visiting the community of Halls Creek in the Kimberley for one week every term since 2010. That’s every term 21 terms in a row. Nothing stopped us, until COVID-19. As a city-based organisation, with team members who fly in and fly out of the communities we work in, the consistency with which we turn up is incredibly important. It’s important to the children and teenagers we work with, it’s important to their Mums, Aunties, Nanas…
The Power of Collective Giving
Why #20kfortoday and #20ktopavetheway? With the financial disruptions caused by COVID-19 and the bushfire crisis earlier in the year, we anticipated that our generous donor community might be depleted. But we didn’t want to give up on the communities we’ve been working with for more than a decade. While we’re currently unable to visit the girls in Halls Creek, Carnarvon and Lockhart River, we are looking ahead to this year’s Travel Program and the life changing opportunities it brings. #20kfortoday…
Girls from Oz – In this Together
20 years ago, thousands of people took to the Sydney Harbour Bridge for the Walk for Reconciliation. Although much progress has been made in reconciliation efforts since, there’s still much work to be done. The release of the 2020 Closing the Gap report highlighted that in the communities we work in, attendance at school is reported to be on the decline. In 2019 the majority of very remote Indigenous primary school students only attended an average of 3-4 days of…
A term of records: Three instructors celebrating milestone trips
For our final piece of the Milestone Mini-series, we’re celebrating Ginger’s 5 trips with g-oz. As an Australian Girls Choir alumni and talented performer, Ginger brings an infectious passion for performing arts education to our program. What made you want to go on your first g-oz trip? As an AGC Alumni, I was very familiar with the g-oz program and was eager to be involved in trips after I graduated. I experienced first-hand the positive impact of the program when…
A term of records: Three instructors celebrating milestone trips
Welcome to the g-oz milestone series! Over the next couple of weeks, while our g-oz Instructors bunker down at home like the rest of Australia, we thought we’d share the stories of three team members recently returned home from Carnarvon and Halls Creek, where they celebrated milestone trips. We invited these instructors to share their g-oz experience, and why being a part of the g-oz program is a special part of their lives. After a week of program delivery in…