All Australians are encouraged to participate in the celebrations and activities that take place across the nation during NAIDOC Week.
The National NAIDOC theme for 2015 is "We All Stand on Sacred Ground: Learn, Respect and Celebrate".
This year the theme highlights Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ strong spiritual and cultural connection to land and sea. The theme is an opportunity to pay respects to country; honour those who work tirelessly on preserving land, sea and culture and to share the stories of many sites of significance or sacred places with the nation.
As the oldest continuing culture on the planet, the living culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is intrinsically linked with these sacred places. Sacred places can be geographic feature like a river or lake, a beach, bays, inlets, hills or a mountain ranges or ceremonial grounds, galleries of rock art or engravings or places used for gathering for cultural practices.
To find out more about NAIDOC Week please visit http://www.naidoc.org.au
Veolia launched its first Reconciliation Action Plan or RAP in mid-2014
Over the past year Veolia’s RAP Committee has supported the business to undertake multiple activities to improve our engagement with and understanding of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, including:
- developing and strengthening partnerships with key indigenous representatives, communities, and organisations;
- promoting supplier diversity in our business and industry through Supply Nation membership, including establishing a Supplier Diversity Framework;
- engaging with employees to raise internal awareness through training and events such as NAIDOC Week and National Reconciliation Week;
- capturing baseline data on employees who identify as Indigenous to better support our employees;
- implementing a cultural protocol document; and,
- engaging with organisations through Veolia’s community engagement strategy, for example working with Essendon Football Club for The Long Walk and partnering with Engineering Aid Australia.
If you would like to find out more about Veolia’s RAP please visit the RAP page.