In Western Australia, NAIDOC Week falls during the school holidays, but this doesn’t stop CEWA schools from learning about and celebrating the histories, cultures and achievements of Aboriginal peoples in the weeks before or after the break. 

In the lead up to NAIDOC Week this year, Mazenod College recorded the first episodes of the Welcome to My Country podcast with individual Aboriginal students, giving them a space to talk about their culture, their life and what NAIDOC Week meant to them.

Welcome to My Country is available to listen to via a number of platforms, including Spotify, pictured.

Beth Murphy, Head of Learning Diversity at Mazenod, who interviewed the students for the podcast, said that the episodes had been very well received. 

“We chose a podcast to foster 21st century learning, providing opportunities for student voice and agency… this, in turn, provided enriched, assorted and flexible learning opportunities to celebrate and educate the community through the lived experiences of Mazenod’s Aboriginal students,” Ms Murphy said. 

“The podcast has been used in the classroom, particularly in the Humanities and Social Science and English,” 

Feedback on the project has been positive, from parents as well as students and staff, and analytics show that it has been listened to in New Zealand, the United States and Singapore, as well as Australia. 

“Given the popularity of the episodes so far, we have decided to continue to podcast until we have recorded all of our Aboriginal students’ stories,” she said. 

“The boys have loved recording them, and volunteer their lunch times to record, 

“They desperately want to share their culture and passions and see their own identity within the College,” Ms Murphy said. 

Episodes planned for release throughout Term Three include interviews with more students, as well as with a Mazenod Aboriginal Teaching Assistant, Aboriginal Liaison Officer, and an episode sharing parent voices.

You can find Welcome to My Country online here.

Feature image: Aaron Haji-Ali, Mazenod College Aboriginal Teaching Assistant, and Beth Murphy, Mazenod College Head of Learning Diversity, in the studio to record an upcoming episode of the Welcome to My Country podcast.

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