March 9, 1998
National Sorry Day Committee
National Sorry Day Launch
Aboriginal elders will "welcome home" members of the Stolen Generation at the launch of the national Sorry Day in Sydney tomorrow (Tuesday March 10).
Gatjil Djerrkura, Chairman of ATSIC, and Evelyn Scott, Chair of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, will take part in the event, which will begin with a ‘smoking ceremony’ and dance, traditionally performed at the beginning of important ceremonial occasions as a purification and cleansing ritual.
Carol Kendall, co-chair of the National Sorry Day Committee, said today, 'The ceremony will validate the experiences of removed people and celebrate the strength, resilience and determination of those who survived these policies.’
The Sorry Day itself, Tuesday May 26, 1998, will be held exactly a year after the tabling in Federal Parliament of 'Bringing Them Home', the report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families.
A national Sorry Day was one recommendation of the report. The National Stolen Generation Working Group therefore invited non-Indigenous people to join with them in setting up a national Sorry Day committee; and now State committees are planning a wide range of events on May 26. The NSW State Governor, the Hon Gordon Samuels, and his wife Jacqueline, are Patrons of the Sorry Day in NSW. Across the country thousands of non-Indigenous Australians are signing Sorry Books, offering their 'personal apology for the hurt and harm' caused by the removal policies. These will be presented to Indigenous elders on Sorry Day.
Ms Kendall said, 'We want Sorry Day to be positive - a day when all Australians can express their sorrow with a clearer understanding of the whole tragic episode, and celebrate together the beginning of a new understanding.'.
