Parliament of Worlds Religion 2009 Melbourne Australia

Author(s): Parliament of the World’s Religions
Publisher: USA Parliament of the Worlds Religions

Page 326

PROGRAM DESC
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
for peace in Fiji. She is also involved in two NGOs for peace and human rights in Fiji: the Citizens Constitutional Forum and the Ecumenical Centre for Research Education and Advocacy. She also educates Christian theological students preparing for ministry in the Anglican Diocese of Polynesia.
Sr Wendy Flannery is a founding member and current activities coordinator of Believing Women for a Culture of Peace, an interfaith and intercultural association for promoting respectful relationships and capacity for conflict transformation among women of diverse faiths in Brisbane, Australia. She has spent over 20 years in educational, development and empowerment work in the Pacific Islands, worked with remote Aboriginal communities, and co-founded the Sisters of Mercy International NGO office at the UN.
Elizabeth Khrishna is Associate Chairperson of Interfaith Search Fiji, which was established in 1987 to raise public awareness of the need for respect, understanding, reconciliation and peace in Fiji's multifaith society through public interfaith prayers, interfaith dialogues and seminars, and multicultural resource material for schools. She has also contributed to various Catholic Church programs for intercultural awareness and the Youth and Peace Development Program of the Ecumenical Centre for Research, Education and Advocacy.
Hearing the Other: How Can Cultural Organisations Best Work with Indigenous Communities?
Caroline Martin
Carolyn Briggs Room 214 Panel Discussion
Presenters from two important Aboriginal institutions of Melbourne, Bunjilaka and the Boon Wurrung Foundation, will highlight best practices for organisations seeking to work productively, honestly and openly with Indigenous communities. Bunjilaka is the Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum, a venue of Museum Victoria. The Centre was developed to empower Aboriginal people to interpret their own cultural heritage for both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. It holds cultural heritage items from a collection that is one of the most significant in the world. Caroline Martin, Manager, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, will discuss how the Centre successfully engages Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities in its programming, and encourages reconciliation through the sharing of history, personal story and experience. The Boon Wurrung Foundation was established for the purpose of benefiting Boon wurrung people and other Indigenous Australians who live on and value Boon wurrung country. The role of the foundation is to facilitate advising on Cultural Heritage matters, to sponsor cultural programs, and to promote and manage the effective use of grants made by third parties to, or for the benefit of, Boon wurrung people, and other Indigenous Australians who live in Boon wurrung country.
Caroline Martin was appointed Manager, Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre at Melbourne Museum in March 2004, Previously, Caroline was a Senior Indigenous Policy Adviser for the Departments of Education and Human Services. Caroline is a descendant of the Briggs family and Traditional Owner of Boon Wurrung Country. Caroline is the current Chairperson of Aboriginal Tourism Victoria, Executive member of the Common Fate Board and is a Future Focus Group Alumni for the Committee for Melbourne.
Carolyn Briggs is the authorised Elder of the Boon Wurrung and a member of the Elders Land Council Aboriginal Corporation. She is a former director of La Trobe University's Aboriginal Tertiary Support Unit and also
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set up the Djawurrung Cultural Community Centre in Bendigo. Carolyn has served as a mediator with the Equal Opportunities Commission and was seconded to work with the Federal Attorney General regarding the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Deaths in Custody.
11:30am-1:00pm
INTERRELIGIOUS SESSION
Development of Indigenous
Foundations: Helping Communities Develop Foundations for Indigenous Peoples
Christopher Peters, USA: Pohlik-lah/Karuk, Moderator Alejandro Argumedo, Peru: Quechua
Tsugio Kuzuno, Japan: Ainu elder Room 215
Panel Discussion
Many international organisations and NGOs have policies, declarations and resolutions that promote and protect the rights of Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous foundations need to be structured for their specific needs. Included could be land rights, health, repatriation and maintaining cultural heritage.
Christopher Peters is the director of the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development, a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting and maintaining the uniqueness of Native peoples throughout the Americas. Mr Alejandro Argumedo, a Quechua from Peru, is Executive Director of the autonomous international NGO, Cultural Survival Canada, focusing on the connection between cultural and biological diversity and on Indigenous peoples' traditional resource rights. Mr Argumedo is coordinator for the Indigenous Peoples' Biodiversity Network (IPBN) and is a member of the steering committee and advisory group for IPBN's Indigenous Knowledge Programme. He holds a degree in agriculture from McGill University.
Tsugio Kuzuno is an Ainu elder and spiritual speaker from Shizunai, Hokkaido, Japan. Mr Kuzuno is noted for winning first prize in the 2nd Ainu Oratorical Contest in November of 1998. This is an event that brings participants, students, elders and the community together to get in touch with the Ainu language and culture.
Philip Arnold Oren Lyons
Jake Swamp
The Doctrine of Discovery
and Indigenous Peoples
Tonya Gonnella-Frichner
Mary N MacDonald
Doug George-Kanentiio Room 216 Panel Discussion
In a series of 15th century Papal Bulls (letters from the Pope to the Catholic Church) there developed what is now known as the 'Doctrine of Discovery'. While there had always been localised expressions of intolerance toward other cultures, these 15th century documents initiated a global colonial enterprise on a scale unprecedented in human history. These Bulls spurred on the Age of Discovery; the trans-Atlantic slave trade; trans-Atlantic mercantilism and global consumerism; the development of colonialism (and with it the theft of land along with cultural and environmental destruction) in the Americas,