National Sorry Day 2013

Held on May 26 each year, since 1998, Australia recognizes National Sorry Day. It is an annual commemoration and rememberance of those impacted by government policies of forcible removal of children from families that have resulted in “The Stolen Generations.”

The commemoration was a direct result of the National Inquiry of 1997 into the Separation of Torres Strait Islander children from their families and the report “Bringing the Home.” Soon afterwards the National Sorry Day Committee was formed with its main mandate to inform the public and encourage awareness raising campaigns. The first National Sorry Day was held in Sydney on May 26, 1998.

Events in Canberra commenced on Monday May 20 at the National Gallery of Australia and will continue until Monday May 27 with the Calvary’s Health Care’s Commemoration. The National Gallery of Australia collaborated with ABC Classic FM’s program “Notes and Strokes” in which selected music was played to accompany a 2009 untitled painting by Walangkura Napanangka. The painting was acquired in acknowledgement of the National Apology to the Stolen Generation with the support of the Myer Foundation.

Today, Sunday May 26, is the National Sorry Day gathering from 4:30 to 6:00pm around The Fireplace at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture in Barton as part of the involvement of churches in policies that affected the children of First Nations peoples. The gathering is an opportunity for the churches to say sorry in a spirit of reconciliation.

The photograph above is by Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda - Sally Gabori.

http://www.nsdc.org.au/events-info

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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