Reconciliation Action Plan summary
Posted on April 28, 2022
By Tracie Acreman
The Friends’ School voices a strong commitment to peace and reconciliation. Through our Purpose and Concerns, and every day across the school, we ask our students and community to advocate for a world where peace, justice and equality are available to all people. We recognise the palawa people as the Traditional Owners and ongoing custodians of the land, waterways, coastlines, seas and skies of this place, lutruwita (Tasmania). Reconciliation with First Nations peoples is a shared journey to promote “… healing, truth-telling and unity for all under the pillars of Voice, Treaty and Truth” (Reconciliation Tasmania 2014). The Friends’ School Reconciliation Action Plan Working Party has been established with the goal of developing and publishing our school’s Reconciliation Action Plan, or RAP.
With support from Reconciliation Tasmania, and using Reconciliation Australia’s Narragunnawali online framework as a planning guide, our RAP will outline a sustainable, whole-school approach to driving reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples by building relationships, respect and opportunities in the classroom, around the school and with our community. The draft of the school’s first RAP was presented to the Board of Governor’s meeting in February. The Working Party was given approval to continue with the process and we plan to be able to publish the RAP later in 2022.
The burden has traditionally been on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to tell their own stories, and rarely have we genuinely listened. These stories are under-told. We have been given a call to action to bring them to light, to tell the truth, to learn, to understand and acknowledge the wrongs of the past and to work in collaboration for a better future. Our Reconciliation Action Plan is a step in the right direction and we have the best intentions, accompanied by good sentiments. But good sentiments, although necessary, are not enough. Quakers believe that faith is lived through action and reconciliation takes action. The theme for National Reconciliation Week this year is, “Be Brave, Make Change”. This is an opportunity to celebrate those who have led change and move beyond good intentions to taking action in our daily lives which supports reconciliation.
If you would like to know more about our Reconciliation Action Plan or become involved, please contact Tracie Acreman, Chair of the Working Party tacreman@friends.tas.edu.au
Reference: we 2014, Reconciliation Tasmania, Reconciliation Tasmania, viewed 8 April 2022, rectas.com.au/what-we-do.
