{"id":2018,"date":"2017-07-02T12:10:40","date_gmt":"2017-07-02T01:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=2018"},"modified":"2017-07-31T12:34:38","modified_gmt":"2017-07-31T02:04:38","slug":"flying-aboriginal-flag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2017\/07\/flying-aboriginal-flag\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying our Aboriginal Flag"},"content":{"rendered":"

For NAIDOC Week, we are sharing this story from Phoebe and Savannah Brice, two\u00a0of the many inspirational activists in <\/em>Breaking the Boundaries<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We live in South Australia in a small, close-knit community\u00a0about 200 kilometres north of Adelaide.<\/p>\n

Phoebe<\/b><\/h4>\n

Our story started in 2007 when our Mum explained to us what\u00a0being Aboriginal meant. She told us we were different from other\u00a0people. When we asked how, she said, \u2018It\u2019s simply because our\u00a0skin colour is different and we have a different flag. When you\u2019re\u00a0older you will understand better.\u2019<\/p>\n

We went to school the next day and when I noticed that our\u00a0flag wasn\u2019t flying proudly next to the Australian flag I started\u00a0asking questions. I asked my classroom teacher why and she\u00a0decided to follow it up. She spoke with our principal and they both\u00a0decided I should contact Mr Rowan Ramsey, our federal Member\u00a0of Parliament, and ask for an Aboriginal flag. I was successful\u00a0and also received a medal for my achievement and initiative.\u00a0Sadly, the flag was never flown because we didn\u2019t have a flagpole\u00a0to fly it on, and later, mysteriously, the flag disappeared.<\/p>\n

After a few years, in 2012, my sister Savannah and I wanted\u00a0to review this problem. We discussed it with our new principal,\u00a0Maceij Jankowski, and our new classroom teacher, Katie Deverall, \u00a0and decided that we would again write to Mr Ramsey asking for\u00a0a new Aboriginal flag and an Australian flag too, as the old one\u00a0had been put through quite a bit. But to prevent the dilemma\u00a0we were earlier faced with, Savannah wrote to Mr Ramsey also\u00a0asking for a flagpole.<\/p>\n

About two weeks later we received a letter in the mail each\u00a0and a parcel containing an Australian and Aboriginal flag. We\u00a0had successfully gained two new flags for our school. But there\u00a0was still the problem of the flagpole.<\/p>\n

Savannah<\/b><\/h4>\n

Phoebe was lucky. Her letter came with a parcel of two flags.\u00a0My letter was a disappointment. It said that the flagpole fund\u00a0had ceased but the good news was that my request had been\u00a0forwarded onto Mr Geoff Brock, our state MP<\/span>, to see whether he\u00a0could be of assistance.<\/p>\n

I waited for around two months to get a reply from Geoff, and\u00a0when I finally got one it said that he was trying and he had sent\u00a0my letter on to other people.<\/p>\n

Then it was the September school holidays and my family\u00a0and I went to the Port Pirie Smelters Picnic. As we were walking\u00a0along Sideshow Alley my mum spotted Geoff Brock and she told\u00a0Phoebe and me to go over and talk to him. So we did. We shook\u00a0his hand and told him about the school and the flagpole. He told\u00a0us that he was planning to visit our school in the last term. When\u00a0school started again, I told my teacher and the principal and they\u00a0were very excited.<\/p>\n

It was Monday of the last week of term for the year and\u00a0Geoff Brock still hadn\u2019t come to visit, so I asked my teacher and\u00a0principal for permission to send an email telling him how upset I\u00a0was that he hadn\u2019t come. The next day the principal asked for me \u00a0in his office. I thought I was in trouble but it turned out that Geoff\u00a0Brock was going to be at my school at 10 am that day. When he\u00a0arrived, the principal, Geoff and I had a short meeting updating\u00a0me on what was happening.<\/p>\n

Then it was 2013. Phoebe had started at high school. We\u00a0didn\u2019t hear from Geoff until early in term two, when the principal\u00a0called me into his office. He said that we had finally got the pole. I\u00a0was so happy I started crying. A few weeks later the pole arrived\u00a0and by that time some of the local reporters heard about the\u00a0story and by the eighth week of term two, I had already been\u00a0in six newspapers. In the last week of school we had a NAIDOC\u00a0<\/span>celebration where one of the other Rocky River schools came\u00a0to celebrate with us. We had a huge flagpole ceremony. All\u00a0the parents came, and both Geoff Brock and Rowan Ramsey\u00a0were there along with news reporters. After Rowan and Geoff\u00a0read their speeches, the school captain and I raised both the\u00a0Australian and Aboriginal flags. For the first time in all my life at\u00a0that school I saw my flag rise.<\/p>\n

I would like to thank all of the people who were involved with\u00a0getting the flags and pole, and all of my friends for their support,\u00a0my teacher and my principal and, most importantly, my mum,\u00a0dad, sisters Phoebe and Samantha, and my older brother Mathew.\u00a0At primary school it\u2019s a tradition that the Year 7s leave their\u00a0mark. As I go into my last year here, I feel my mark has already\u00a0been made.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Find out more about <\/em>Breaking the Boundaries<\/a> here.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For NAIDOC Week, we are sharing this story from Phoebe and Savannah Brice, two\u00a0of the many inspirational activists in Breaking the Boundaries.   We live in South Australia in a small, close-knit community\u00a0about 200 kilometres north of Adelaide. Phoebe Our … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[684,686,687,685,683],"class_list":["post-2018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-extract","tag-aboriginal-flag","tag-activism","tag-breaking-the-boundaries","tag-indigenous-issues","tag-naidoc-week"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-wy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2018"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2159,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018\/revisions\/2159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}