The Kinchela Boys Home is declared an urgent heritage site to preserve by the World Monuments Watch

Survivors from the Kinchela Boys Home (KBH) are one step closer to preserving the former institution, and transforming it into a space for remembering and healing, after it was flagged as an important heritage site to maintain.

The World Monuments Watch declared on March 2 that the site was one of 25 across the globe that should be urgently preserved for future generations.

World Monuments Fund is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and training.

This year's Watch has selected different sites that are facing challenges such as underrepresentation, climate change, an imbalance in tourism and recoveries from crises.

Survivor Uncle Roger Jarrett, who was referred to as number 12 in KBH, said he looked forward to the day it was returned to survivors, so they could complete parts of their healing journeys.

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"My love in my heart, as a kid, is still in that bloody home," he said.

"It's a fact.

"And returning the ownership to KBH survivors is going to allow me to return the love that I lost in that place.

"Just the thought of going there makes you feel a little bit better than you were before - giving you a feeling that you achieved something - I achieved my last little bit of pain easing, you know?".

The former institution saw between 400 to 600 Aboriginal children exposed to routine acts of cultural genocide between 1924 to 1970, as part of government and church initiatives to assimilate them into non-Indigenous society.

Children were stripped of their names, given numbers, and subjected to 'reprogramming', strict manual labor regimes, abuse and alienation until the campus was closed in 1970.

The long-lasting impacts of the traumas are also felt by generations of survivors' families and other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were forcibly taken from their families and communities across the country.

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Kinchela Boys Home survivor Uncle James Michael 'Widdy' Welsh, who was identified as number 36, still held onto the pain from being in the former home.

"Our silence allowed a lot of evil pain to be given to us to pass onto our children," he said.

"That's as simple as you'll get, and as truthful as you'll get."

He said there was only one way forward for him and other survivors.

"I still hurt from it, and the only way that it will go away is for a museum and healing centre to be built on this site," he said.

"I really think this will bring this community together."

Uncle Roger and Widdy are members of the Board of the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation (KBHAC), which has plans to restore the now-vacant complex into a place where traumas can be recognised, and survivors can heal.

The remaining buildings and landscape show evidence the Stolen Generation has had long-lasting impacts on many Australians.

The site stands as a testament to the strength and resilience of Stolen Generations survivors, whose stories and lived experiences are paving the way for justice and healing.

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Survivors have fought for recognition and validation of what happened at the former site for a long time.

The site was listed on the NSW State Heritage Register in 2012, and named as an Aboriginal place under the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 in 2013.

KBHAC has advocated for an agreement that would allow it to manage the grounds and implement plans for a new interpretation for a long time.

The organisation is now in the process of securing the right to transform the site into a centre for truth-telling, survivor stories, and healing.

This will be the first of its kind to address the legacy of violence against Stolen Generation survivors and communities - not only as an exhibition of the history, but also as a current issue that must be confronted decades later.

KBHAC is also going to use $400,000 in federal funding issued in March, to aid Indigenous youth in Kempsey and surrounding areas, with establishing stronger connections to their cultures, Elders and families.

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