Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation launches program at Opera House

Launched during National Reconciliation Week (May 27-June 3), the program has begun 100 years on from when the KBH first opened its gates and received young Aboriginal boys forcibly removed from their families.

KBHAC CEO Tiffany McComsey said that the centenary was a significant anniversary that needed to be commemorated with the surviving Uncles.

"And this year we want to not only commemorate that anniversary but also to launch our 'Walking Together Program,'" she said.

"Which is a survivor and descendant lead program to stop the multi-generational trauma from continuing to impact on the survivors families."

With only 52 of the 600 young boys and girls who attended the home still alive today, the program aims to help survivors be part of the healing work with their descendants.

The KBH is one of Australia's most notorious Stolen Generation institutions that saw Aboriginal children exposed to acts of cultural genocide between 1924 to 1970.

In September 2023, a state government report found anomalies at the site consistent with clandestine burials.

Survivors have often shared the horrific abuse they were subject to at KBH with survivor Uncle Michael 'Widdy' Welsh recalling physical and sexual abuse.

"It was a bad place, an evil place," he said.

"I cannot understand why the people that worked there were the way they were."

"It was a place that was designed to break us from our culture and to be able to assimilate us to be slaves for the colonised world."

Uncle Widdy arrived at the home at just eight-years-old where he was held for over five years.

He was called a number instead of his name and recalls the poor food conditions, the lack of privacy and restrictions place on him and his siblings.

After leaving the home, he turned to alcohol to cope with the pain he experienced and said that he has handed his trauma down to his family.

"Trauma to me was just a word but I know now it was a disease that was programmed in me..." Uncle Widdy said.

It's something the 'Walking Together Program' is hoping to heal.

The 'Walking Together Program' aims to create space for the Stolen Generations community to discuss issues, connect with elders, and reclaim culture, dignity, and family structure.

"We know that the systems and the programs currently out there that... are trauma recovery programs aren't helping the Stolen Generations and they're not working for the Kinchela Boys Home survivor community," Ms McComsey said.

"Without knowing the pain, without understanding what it is the Uncles and families need and want and how to support their own healing, these [other] programs are going to continue to fail them."

KBHAC had been aware that the survivor community which included survivors' descendants and families was in urgent need of a fit-for-purpose cultural healing and wellbeing program.

After a number of acute individual and family incidents experienced by the survivor community in 2022, KBHAC discussed the need for a special rehabilitation program with Nama Jalu Consulting.

The two organisation conducted three yarning circles in Dubbo, Sydney and Kempsey to speak with survivors and their families and examined existing KBHAC programs which helped form the 'Walking Together Program'.

The program, which is named after how the community described what they want their healing journey to look like, will be run by a team within KBHAC.

The team will conduct regular face-to-face yarning circles, engaging participants in cultural activities, art and music therapy and Sorry Business, along with assisting with family rebuilding, grief, and loss support.

In addition to launching the program, KBHAC will be having a commemoration weekend for the 100^th anniversary over October 18-20.

"We, as KBHAC, I call us a modern day revolution," Uncle Widdy said.

"We don't want anyone to be punished, we don't want anyone to be hurt.

"But we do want people to understand that we have the right to be who were are supposed to be...."