Coastal Sydney: Dharawal language in the La Perouse community [video]

ngayagang Ray Ingrey, guriwaldha ngalamangay gamayngal ba gadhungal, gamamaringay Dharawallanga.

My name is Ray Ingrey, I live at La Perouse, I belong to Botany Bay and coastal Sydney and I am speaking to you in Dharawal.

Places like Gujaga childcare where our kids learn children songs, they learn instructions in Dharawal language it’s a semi immersed type setting. It’s to build up their own cultural identity so our future generation not only succeed in the western world we live in today but ensure that they’ve got a strong cultural foundation as well.

So we created a formal program and we were able then to generate a lot of resources looking at what’s been said in the past and in the early days at Gujaga childcare parents were saying ‘our kids are coming home and we don’t fully understand what they’re saying’ so we had to then, to make sure that language was being reinforced in the home and community environment, we had to create adult classes.

So now we teach to adults as well as our young children in our community and that way it can reinforced at home and spoken again in our community.