June Oscar AO speaks to the foundational importance of a life-long journey of learning to overcome and recover from all forms of trauma. June explores the transformative process of learning environments that are built for life. She introduces Marninwarntikura’s Baya Gawiy, the early year’s education and care, and parent support centre, where intergenerational community resilience and nurture are highlighted and strengthened. The work of this innovative centre stabilises and forms societal relationships that help us all comprehend, live through, and ultimately overcome the many ramifications of transmitted trauma.
June’s work alongside other Fitzroy Valley community members, in establishing centres such as this, is infusing and informing a holistic reconstruction agenda and reminding us all why community driven and informed early life interventions are so essential.
June talks of the essential need to integrate both Indigenous and Western epistemologies which move services away from isolated delivery, toward wrap-around health and educational supports for all. It is a process which gives children, young people and their families the courage and self-belief that they are able to walk in multiple worlds and be proud of their Indigenous identity and heritage wherever they travel. This work is enabling and empowering pathways to community owned reconstruction and recovery. It moves beyond crisis by using evidence to prevent the crisis from ever occurring.
As this work is constructed, June and the community members of the Fitzroy Valley see in the lives of children and families today, a vibrant and healthy future.