Right: Terisita, 12, and Rachel, 10, having fun at the Gembrook playground.
By Russell Bennett
GRADE five students from Cockatoo Primary School are involved in an exchange program with a twist.
Once a year, as part of the school’s Aboriginal Perspectives curriculum, nine children are interviewed and selected to visit the Ramingining community in east Arnhem Land, about 500 kilometres west of Darwin.
“The program is about racial tolerance and learning to get along with other people and accepting different values and cultures,” Cockatoo teacher Barb Kewish explained.
Students from Cockatoo have been visiting the Ramingining people since 1994.
“We go up there each year in August,” Ms Kewish said.
“The first time I went up there, I had absolutely no idea what to expect.”
“You try to imagine what it’s going to be like but you really can’t.”
“It’s literally amazing.”
This year, Cockatoo students were involved in an 18-day trip, which included spending eight days at the remote Ramingining school.
The indigenous students began their visit with Cockatoo Primary School on 13 October and returned home on Sunday.
The Ramingining kids visited the Casey wave pool on their trip. None of them had ever seen anything like it before.
“They absolutely loved it, though,” Ms Kewish said.
They also visited the Dandenong Market, Melbourne Zoo, Phillip Island and Eureka Tower, and travelled on Puffing Billy to have a picnic lunch in Gembrook.
Alvin, 17, finished high school last year and now tutors the Ramingining students.
“This is my first time to Victoria,” he said.
“The weather is very cold and I’m not very used to that.
“That’s the biggest change.
“The most exciting thing about the trip, for me, is knowing that more kids from up north get to visit Cockatoo next year.
“The thing I’ll remember most when I get back home is the cold weather down here and the new friends I’ve made.”
Cockatoo Primary School principal Darrelyn Boucher said: “Everything the indigenous kids are doing down here is new.
“Because we’ve been running the program for so long, you sometimes forget where they’ve come from but I was reminded when we picked them up at the airport and hopped in the lift.
“We went from one floor to the next, and just the look on a couple of the boys’ faces – you could just see ‘oh my stars, what’s happening to me now?’.”
