Re-lighting the fire within

The FISH Team believes that within each one of us and within communities we all have an inner fire.
When the fire goes out due to trauma or the impact of life circumstances, we need to know how to relight the fire.
Once our fire has been relit, we then need to know how to maintain it so it doesn’t go out or get out of control.
Relighting the fire takes preparation. You need to get the right tools and materials and have the knowledge to know how to light the fire.
You then need to work hard and put in the effort to relight the fire. It doesn’t just happen !
When you learn to rely on each other the lighting of the fire becomes easier.
As Koodah, one of FISH’s Elders says, “Each one of us has the traits of inquisitiveness, impatience and emotion.”
We get inquisitive in learning how to relight our fire, then we get impatient that it can take so long, but then we get emotional when the fire has been lit and we celebrate. Then we need persistence and knowledge to know how to tend the fire to make sure it doesn’t go out and keeps going strong.
This week the FISH National Codesign Group for the FISH Myalup Karla Waangkiny Healing and Justice Initiative came together on country at Myalup for our annual get together and codesign session. It was a wonderful event with over 30 Elders and leaders from across Australia from all different mobs coming together with a shared purpose and focus to bring real lasting positive change and structural reform in the justice space for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
It was a very moving experience as the Codesign Group went through the fire lighting ceremony to symbolise our working together over the last 4 years to bring the FISH Myalup Karla Waangkiny Healing and Justice Initiative, as a National Prototype Healing and Justice Initiative, to a point of being able to secure Development Approval in December 2023 from the State Government of Western Australia for the whole of the 11 hectare site development.
The Codesign Group then refocussed on tending the fire and keeping it going strong to bring the whole project implementation to a successful conclusion. There is a lot of work still to be done but the FISH Codesign Group are focussed on the work at hand as we now bring the intricate detail to the program design and to each building in the detailed design work ready for Building Licences.
Watch this space !
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