The Gamilaraay language echoed through the Town Hall on Wednesday morning, June 13, as 240 children came together to sing Bob Marley’s One Love.
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A project aimed at building positive connections to Indigenous culture; children aged one to 18 sang for a music video set to be distributed locally this NAIDOC Week (July 8-15). It will also be used as a training tool across the state with the Department of Education, with leadership from Inverell High School teacher Cath Jeffery.
“It blew my mind a bit,” Inverell District Family Services (IDFS) Aboriginal education leader Josh Blair said.
“It was beautiful. This is my area, this is my tribe and this is my language, so for me to be able to share that with everyone that was involved and then for all those students and children to learn, just amazing.”
The singers came from Kindamindi Preschool, Jack and Jill Preschool, the Catherine Campbell Centre, Little Sprouts, Grow Family Daycare, the Northern Roads Activity Van 1, Holy Trinity, Ross Hill and Inverell High.
An idea formed by IDFS CEO Nicky Lavender, educational leader Sharon Youman and Ms Jeffery, Mr Blair translated the song into Gamilaraay. Local musician Chris Richter helped with the musical aspects, and will put the video together.
“It was just amazing to see it come together from a small idea,” Ms Youman said.
The group tried translating several different songs to Gamilaraay, but kept coming back to One Love.
“It’s a beautiful song. It’s got a beautiful meaning to it, everyone coming together. As a community, that’s our message. We’ve done that through music,” Mr Blair said.
“Once I translated it into the local language it had a nice flow to it and something you can just sway to.”
Teaching the song to children too young to read was difficult, but through regular repetition over two months, he succeeded.
Hearing the children sing the local language meant “everything”, Mr Blair said.
“It’s not something you hear a lot of, and not a lot of people speak their local languages across Australia,” he said.
“Something as simple as one chorus, it’s all started now. From there I hope to develop a language program which will teach in the centres.”
He was touched to overhear youngsters singing the Gamilaraay song in the aisles of a local supermarket, and said he hopes the music video will lead to the whole community singing in the language.
The video will be part of a DVD that will be distributed among the participating schools, may be handed out to locals during NAIDOC Week and will spread across the state with the Department of Education.
“It’s called playing for change and the idea behind it is that music is for everyone, and music can bring people together,” Mr Blair said.