Waynead Wolmby, 22, wants the Voice to get more Aboriginal children into education
An emerging leader and education worker from Aurukun has said what the Voice to Parliament needs to do for his community as he describes the pains of growing up Aboriginal in Australia.
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An emerging leader and education worker within the Aurukun community has said schooling is the antidote to a growing list of socio-economic woes hurting Far North Indigenous families.
Waynead Wolmby, 22, is a teacher aide at Aurukun School and the leader of the town’s local youth group.
Mr Wolmby said he strove every day to encourage the town’s kids to come to school, but acknowledges the hardship that keeps many away.
“I go to work everyday because I want to help these kids, to show them they can do anything if they come to school,” Mr Wolmby said.
“It’s quite hard and daunting when you live in a remote community because we have a lot of challenges. It can be quite hard for families to bring their kids to school.
“There’s loud music, alcohol, fighting, sorry business. There are a lot of factors.”
Mr Wolmby also said nutrition was a significant concern.
“We have a lot of health issues … because the nutrition is twice the price of the food in Cairns,” he said.
“Australia is one of the best countries, a ‘fair-go country’, but we are living in a third-world country. It’s ridiculous.”
Mr Wolmby was schooled in Aurukun until Year 8; his parents then enrolled him in the Cape York Leaders Program which allowed him to attend a private boarding school in Brisbane.
“It was quite hard leaving my family and community behind,” he said.
“But I was very fortunate to go down there and have that experience. If I stayed in community there would be nothing (for me). My parents wanted me to get out of the community and become someone, to help my community grow.
“I thank my parents for encouraging me to stick out five years of boarding. It was the best thing for me.
“My family wanted me to do my best, to go to school. My parents did not graduate school; they didn’t want that to pass down to me and my siblings. They wanted to break that cycle.”
Mr Wolmby completed a Certificate IV in youth work and is currently completing more study to become a teacher.
He said he hoped a potential Voice to Parliament, which he said he would vote for, would get more Indigenous children to participate in schooling.
“It will make a big difference … Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will be part of decision making for the first time,” he said.
“When you look at our history, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people didn’t have a voice back then.
“Back then we couldn’t vote. People would be put into so-called missions, which were really dormitories. People had their kids taken away in the stolen generations.”
He said some people in his community did not have an understanding of the Voice.
“We need more people to go and explain the Voice to Parliament to our community, explain what it is and how it could help. We need to have it explained more to the grassroots level,” he said.
Mr Wolmby also wants a process of truth telling to follow the Voice referendum, regardless of the outcome.
He described the journey of learning Australia’s history of race relations as “hurtful”.
“I thought, ‘wow, if we live in a fair-go country, why did this happen?’ We’ve got to learn from this past so we don’t make the same mistake in the future,” he said.
“People say we should ‘get over it’, that makes us sad. Bad things are still happening through intergenerational trauma. There is no ‘getting over it’.
“We need to acknowledge that this country was Aboriginal land and a lot of bad things happened.
“It’s quite sad. In this country we’re still behind. We’ve still got a long way to go. One day we should all be united, to learn from the past … we’ve got to make the future better for our kids and be equal.”
Mr Wolmby said he had battled with mental health challenges as a young man, but found his escape through distance running.
After completing marathons both in Australia and overseas, he has begun to apply a new motto, “just keep running”, to the regular challenges he grapples with.
“It’s good to just be able to put on your shoes go for a run in this beautiful country we live in,” he said.
“Whatever you put your mind to, you can achieve anything. To run a marathon in Greece was crazy, but it showed me what I could do.”
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Originally published as Waynead Wolmby, 22, wants the Voice to get more Aboriginal children into education
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