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By participating in the Australian Blanket Exercise, you are remembering, acknowledging and sharing the pain of colonisation.
We invite you to walk with us in a movement of the Australian people for a better future.
“This experience is a must for all Australians to truly understand OUR true, devastating and hidden history.” - Tara Dunn, 2023
“...the Blanket Exercise was the most moving, thought provoking and morally challenging activity in which I have participated in my life.” - Judeline Wadhwani, 2023
Background:
The Australian Blanket Exercise is an adaption of the ‘Blanket Exercise’, a program developed in 1997 by KAIROS Canada, a movement of Indigenous, settler and newcomer peoples committed to ecological justice and human rights. Through KAIROS, people of faith and conscience work together for social change in Canada and beyond.
KAIROS Canada Partnership
KAIROS describes the Blanket Exercise as a participatory history lesson developed in collaboration with Indigenous Elders, knowledge keepers and educators that foster truth, understanding, respect and reconciliation among Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples1.
A formal partnership with KAIROS has enabled us to adapt the process for the Australian context which we now call the Australian Blanket Exercise. Australian blankets have links to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Storying and Knowings. They are used for healing and lore business. But Australian Blankets also have a devastating history in this continent. They were used by colonisers to gather and murder, poison, and kill First Nations Peoples2.
What is the ‘Australian Blanket Exercise’?
Developed in collaboration with First Nations Elders, knowledge keepers and educators, the Australian Blanket Exercise is an interactive and experiential teaching tool that explores the historic and contemporary relationship between First Nations and non-First Nations peoples in Australia.
During this 2 hour workshop, participants step on blankets representing the land and enter into the role of First Nations Peoples. They are guided by trained facilitators, including First Nations’ Traditional Owners, Elders and knowledge keepers, who work from a script that covers the Doctrine of Discovery and Terra Nullius, Colonisation, the Frontier Wars, Missions, Reserves and Stations, the Stolen Generations, Assimilation, as well as Acts of Resistance and Change. Participants read scrolls and respond to cues in the script.
The Australian Blanket Exercise concludes with a yarning circle, during which participants discuss the learning experience, process their feelings, ask questions, share insights, and deepen their understanding.
By engaging participants on both emotional and intellectual levels, the Australian Blanket Exercise both educates and creates empathy and understanding.
1 KAIROS : www.kairosblanketexercise.org/programs , accessed (02/03/2023)
2 http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/was-sydneys-smallpox-outbreak-1789-act-biological-warfare- Against-aboriginal-tribes , accessed (02/03/2023)