National Reconciliation Week, observed each year from 27 May to 3 June, is a time for Australians to reflect on our shared history, to honour the cultures and contributions of First Nations peoples, and to consider the practical steps each of us can take toward a more just and reconciled nation.

At Meriden, reconciliation is not simply a sentiment we observe once a year. It is something we are seeking to live out through genuine, ongoing relationship.

For several years now, Meriden has been proud to be part of the Yadha Muru Foundation’s City Country Partnership, which connects city-based schools with remote communities. Through this partnership, we are linked with two schools in the Northern territory, at Ti Tree and Neutral Junction, both of which serve students whose educational opportunities and life circumstances differ enormously from those of our girls here in Strathfield.

The partnership is built on consistent, respectful relationship. Each term, members of our staff travel to these communities to spend time with students and teachers, offering support for learning and working alongside local educators to help improve educational outcomes. Each year we are also privileged to welcome students from Ti Tree and Neutral Junction to our own campus, giving our girls the opportunity to connect with peers whose experiences of life and schooling are vastly different from their own.

What we have come to understand deeply through this partnership is that the benefit flows in both directions, and in ways that cannot easily be measured. Our students and staff return from the communities with something that no classroom lesson can fully replicate: an encounter with living culture. Through time with the elders of these communities, our girls gain a profound respect for Country, for the wisdom embedded in First Nations ways of knowing, and for the richness of a culture whose connection to this land stretches back tens of thousands of years. These are lessons that shape character, and we are grateful beyond words for the generosity with which the communities share them.

In Term 3 a group of Year 11 students will travel to the Northern Territory to visit both communities in person. They will go not simply as visitors, but as learners, with open eyes and open hands, ready to offer practical assistance to the schools while genuinely listening to and learning from the people they meet.

This National Reconciliation Week, we are also thrilled to mark our partnership in a very visible and meaningful way. We are proud to launch a new playing strip for several of our sports teams, featuring a stunning artwork custom-created for Meriden by Aunty April Napangardi Campbell, an Elder of the Ti Tree community. Aunty April’s design reflects the connection between our two communities and the relationship we have built together. It is a significant and beautiful work, and we are enormously proud to have our girls wear it with the respect and pride it deserves.

Our First Football team will have the honour of debuting this strip on Saturday, 30 May, as they take to the field against Pymble Ladies College at 11:00am for Reconciliation Round. We warmly encourage our school community to come along and show their support, not only for our girls, but for the partnership and the story that strip represents.

Reconciliation asks us to move beyond awareness and into action. We are grateful to the Yadha Muru Foundation for providing the framework to do exactly that, and for the work of Mrs Jenny Greenhalgh as the Coordinator of Cultural Connections in overseeing the partnership.