Painted up and proud
Graduate School of Health hosts The Glen Dancers
Photo by Chriss Bull
The Glen Dancers brought the past, present and future of Aboriginal culture to UTS last week with their ceremony dances to help mark the launch of Girra Maa’s 2018 Achievements and Activities Report.
The Glen, hosted by Girra Maa – the Graduate School of Health’s Indigenous Health Discipline –performed a ‘welcome’, ‘Baiame’ and ‘farewell’ dance at the UTS Tower on 4 March. Before the dancers even had a chance to warm up, a crowd had gathered to witness and soak up the sound, energy and passion that the group exuded!
The Glen is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander-led service that provides holistic, drug and alcohol rehabilitation opportunities for men (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) from all over NSW. They are partners of the GSH Bunya Project, an action research project led by GSH’s Teaching Fellow, Danielle Montgomery, for her PhD research.
The Bunya Project collaborates with a range of Aboriginal-led community organisations developing culturally respectful and engaging, health-focussed teaching and learning resources that will be utilised by the communities themselves, and GSH staff and students. Hosting The Glen demonstrated one of the six core values of the NHMRC guidelines for ethical conduct of research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, reciprocity.
Following the dances, Indigenous Health’s discipline Head, Dr Megan Williams, officially launched Girra Maa’s 2018 Achievements and Activities Report and the Narrbang Indigenous Health Research Student Network across Maridulu Budyari Gumal Sydney Partnerships for Health, Education and Research Enterprise (SPHERE).
For more information about the report or SPHERE email Megan Williams.
