100th Commemoration Kinchela Boys Home
In 2024 it has been 100 years since the gates of Kinchela Boys Home opened. At those gates, the spirits of the children who walked through the gates were left behind.
The KBH Community want people to know that they have survived. That even though the government tried to destroy their families, culture and communities, the government failed. The KBH Community is still strong in who they are; they are part of one of the oldest living cultures.
The Survivors of Kinchela Boys Home want community and non-Aboriginal people to hear the truth from those that were there, to feel the truth, to learn and deeply understand what happened at Kinchela and the impact it had on their lives and their families lives and that the fight is still happening and still needed.
Invitation to Commemoration
Importance of KBH Site
There is collective, important work to be done and the survivors and descendants of KBH are inviting you to walk alongside them, not just on “Sorry Day” or for this weekend, but in meaningful and sustained ways.
This includes supporting their vision for transforming the Kinchela Boys Home Site into a national site of truth telling and healing through the creation of a living museum and healing centre.
This work foregrounds the importance of connecting with each other, to empower one another and inspire each other through shared stories. This is an opportunity to join and support the KBH Community to witness, remember and grow.
How YOU can Support
Support the survivors and descendants of Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation by
- Sharing this information to raise awareness among your family and communities about the ongoing impact on the survivors families of Kinchela Boys Home and the need to reclaim the site as a national site for truth telling and healing
- Book a truth telling session at your workplace, school, college or community. Email kbh100@kbhac.org.au
- Fundraise and donate to develop the national site of truth telling, the healing centre and programs to support the ageing of survivors and descendants
To learn more about the programs we need support in implementing see:
Justice Reinvestment:
KBHAC are well aware there is an over representation of stolen generations Survivors and descendants who have and are in the child protection and justice systems. We also know there are significant mental health, other health, education, housing and employment implications of the ongoing trauma resulting from the policies of the Stolen Generations.
However, there is no data collected or question asked from child protection, justice, health, education etc departments or agencies on if someone is a Stolen Generations Survivor or descendent. This means we do not have hard data to back up what we know. This project aims to change that by collecting data from Survivors and descendants from the three Survivor organisations to have the evidence to tell the stories we know all too well.
What is Justice Reinvestment?
Justice reinvestment is a way of shifting power and decision making to First Nations communities to self-determine the best way to improve justice outcomes in their communities.
Walking Together Program
The Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation (KBHAC) has been acutely aware that the KBH Survivor community, which includes KBH Survivors, their descendants and families, is in urgent need of a fit-for-purpose cultural healing and wellbeing program. Although there are existing trauma-based healing and recovery programs, none have been specifically Stolen Generations Survivor / Descendant designed nor tailored to the needs of Stolen Generations Survivor communities.
The urgent need for this program is due to the health and ageing of the KBH Survivors who need to be part of this healing work with their descendants and families, and also to the complex needs that continue to adversely impact on the KBH Survivor Community.
Towards the end of 2022 a number of acute individual and family incidents were experienced by KBH Survivors, their descendants and families. A proposal for this project was developed and KBHAC approached the Healing Foundation for funding to develop a KBHAC cultural rehabilitation program
The More I Talk, The Stronger I Get:
Unlocking Our Past to Free Our Future – National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse
The More I Talk, The Stronger I Get: Unlocking Our Past to Free Our Future is a Stolen Generations Survivor-led community-led project that will utilise KBHAC’s unique Survivor-led governance model and practice framework to explore the legacies of institutional child sexual abuse (CSA) that occurred at KBH, the intergenerational legacies of those abuses on the Survivors’ descendants and families, the CSA experiences of KBH descendants and the development of survivor-led responses to these experiences.
The project has implications not only for healing within KBH Survivors, families and the KBHAC community but also across other Aboriginal communities and Aboriginal Survivors of institutional and non-institutional CSA.