Cultural Day at Botanical Gardens
Cultural Day
The sun beamed down on over 30 carers and 25 children and young people at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Melbourne when the FCAV ran our Cultural Day on Friday 22nd April in partnership with the Northern team at VACCA and funded by Carer KaFÉ, the Statewide Foster, Kinship and Permanent care training and development program including the Carer KaFÉ Program Manager, Paula White whose help we could not have done without.
The Aboriginal Cultural training was led by Lenka and Jacobi, Indigenous learning facilitators from the Learning Program at the Gardens who began with an Acknowledgement of Country by the lovely pond in the Observatory Gardens and taught us participants Aboriginal language terms for some the flora and surroundings.
Left: Lenka and Jakobi standing in front of the pond at the Observatory Garden
As we walked around the 170-year-old Garden, the team gave insight into the rich history and thriving culture of the First Peoples of Australia by identifying significant plants, their uses such as bush food and medicinal needs.
Lucy, Owen and Victory from VACCA were wonderful support to the learning and assisted in all aspects of the excursion. Thanks Owen for quick thinking when one child fell over and we needed the first aid bag!
Returning from the walk we all had enjoyed the lunch provided and carers were able to spend some time catching up with each other and workers. We then participated in cultural art and craft activities including sand art, colouring in native animals, making beautiful jewellery and both younger and older children joined in or took away some of the activities to keep them busy on their journey home.
As the day drew to a close, many participants from all over Victoria took away a backpack kindly donated by the students at Parade College.
“I loved the round robin type walk through the gardens, where we stopped off at different activities and learned about something different along the way. Great way to do it! Kept the kids engaged.”
“The friendliness and knowledge of the staff showing us around. The little one loved interacting along the walk and was totally into the water play & art area.”
Look out for opportunities to join in our Cultural Days in upcoming newsletters and at Carer KaFÉ: Learning & Development for Carers (carerkafe.org.au)
