TICKETED COVID SAFE EVENT:

Australian South Sea Islanders (Port Jackson) are now a COVID safe registered business. www.assipj.com.au

JOIN US IN SHOWCASING THE DIVERSITY OF TALENT WITHIN OUR LOCAL SYDNEY MUSIC SONG & ARTS SCENE.

This is an outdoor park event and is limited to 100 single persons or 60 close family groups at any given time. This is a ticketed due to COVID regulations. The ticket proceeds will go towards additional running costs and the fee also secures your spot HOWEVER respectfully no shows (after 30 minutes) will be reallocated due to demand and fairness under such difficult circumstances.

Australia Day COVID friendly reminders (register via the link below with NSW app for entry)

https://www.australiaday.com.a...

Free Water on sight (bring refill water bottles) I Sanitising Stations on Arrival I BYO Snacks or Food basket. 30 Blankets and 30 chairs will be provided for early birds however BYO Blanket or Popup chair. BYO sunscreen and sun hat or umbrella however there is shade and park benches close by.

Reflect, respect, celebrate – we’re all part of the story.

Sugar Fest Oceanic Culture History & Music is the result of over a decade of building community partnerships that celebrate the willingness of our Australian society to learn of its hostical beginnings and the need to work together to build a more cohesive and robust society of inclusive multiculturalism.

On this day we remember what was before colonisation and reflect on our nation’s true history, which began tens of thousands of years ago with the First Australians – the world’s oldest living culture – and we must never forget the impact that European settlement had on our First Nations families way of life. We reflect and pay our respects to the knowledge keepers of land, sea and sky and in caring for Country.

Australian South Sea Islanders are recognised as a 'distinct cultural group' under the 1994 Commonwealth as a result of the 1992 Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commissions Report 'The Call for Recognition'. Some 62,500 Melanesian Sugar Slaves were Blackbirded to Australia under the guise of 'Indentured Labour' contracts.

Stolen, tricked and coerced from the eighty islands of Vanuatu and Solomons included Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Tuvalu, New Caledonia and Fiji. Benjamin Boyd illegally trafficked the first men to NSW in 1847, followed by the influx to Queensland by Robert Towns, John Mackay the more famous names of township founders between 1863-1908 in establishing a booming economy in sugar, maritime, pastoral and cotton industries. Subjected to the same dispossession and Slavery working conditions as our First Nations and African brothers and sisters, some 15,000 also died within the first 6 months of arriving from common diseases.

Your support for this cultural program advances our Australian narrative of a valued shared history that has gone untold for some 173 years for those South Sea island descendants of Blackbirding the Australian South Sea Islanders while creating a greater sense of belonging as we are all part of the story!

WHAT's ON:

1 Day Event

OUTDOOR EVENT

Date: Tuesday 26th January 2021

Time: 10:30 am - 5:00 pm

Reserve a spot:

Limited spaces 100 pp ONLY at any given time. Access made available ion the day as people leave.

Price:

$20 per person for All-day ticket (collect a wristband at the gate on arrival)

Our Procession at 10 am CANCELLED due to border and travel restrictions

START:

2) Time: 10:30 am to 5:00 pm

PERFORMANCES:

MC Danny Togo

10:30 - Welcome to Country Mr Nathan Moran / CEO Metropolitan Aboriginal Land Council

10:40 – City of Sydney Council / Deputy Lord Mayor Counsellor Jess Scully

10:45 - 'Blackistory' Wilo Muwadda

Scarred Tree Indigenous Ministries song Baba Wairar with Uncle Ben Harry & Colin Watego

11:00 - Independent Member for Sydney / Mr Alex Greenwich

11:05 - 'Blackistory' Tim Mc Andrew - Blackbird rap

11:10 - Tito Schmidt Stowers founder Spirit of the Pacific (Dance & Fashion parade)

11:20 - Carl St James the Violist

12:00 - Pacific Diva - Ballina Gee

12:30 - Shobha – Bollywood & Patriotic performance

12:40 - Move it with Memuna

01:15 - Yacou Drum & Dance from Senegal

01:45 - Maysa - Neosoul

02:15 - 'Blackistory' Danny Togo reads from We Mortals (Stewart Levitt's poetry)

02:20 - 'Blackistory' Aunty Barbra Flick spoken word "Well I Have a speech"

02:30 - Uncle Johnny Nicol jazz artist

03:00 - DJ while the band sets up

03:30 - Steve Clisby Band

04:30 - END & DJ Music until 05:00pm

BLACKBIRDING HISTORY video 'Footprints'

Our supporters:

http://www.assipj.com.au/our-s...

Testimonials:

http://www.assipj.com.au/testi...