Healing call as centenary marked at notorious boys home Camden Haven Coffs Coast Nambucca Valley by News Of The Area - Modern Media - October 25, 2024 Hundreds of Aboriginal boys were taken from their families to Kinchela between 1924 and 1970. UNCLE James Michael ‘Widdy’ Welsh was taken from his family in Coonamble, in central NSW, when he was eight years old. He was taken hundreds of kilometres away to the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Home near Kempsey. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your business. Message us. Phone us – (02) 4981 8882. Email us – media@newsofthearea.com.au “When we went through those gates, that little child didn’t exist anymore,” Uncle Widdy told AAP. “We were given numbers, we were put in a way that we were never allowed to do anything, we were never allowed to ask for anything, never allowed to question anything.” Uncle Widdy’s number was ’36’. He is one of hundreds of boys taken from their families and placed at Kinchela between 1924 and 1970. These boys were part of the Stolen Generations – Indigenous children taken from families and community in an attempt to assimilate them into white society. There are 49 survivors of Kinchela alive today. Marking 100 years since Kinchela’s establishment last Saturday, the survivors are calling for the site to be converted into a museum and healing centre. Uncle Widdy, now aged 72, didn’t want anything to do with the Kinchela site at first. “I, like most of the brothers, just wanted to burn it down or blow it up,” he said. “We didn’t want to go back to that place because it was an evil place to us. “The truth is that would not serve a purpose because it would just hide the trauma that comes from that place.” He wants the Kinchela site to be a place of truth-telling and healing, where the experiences of the survivors can be honoured. “They’d flog us, they’d starve us, these are the things that happened there but we didn’t have no one to tell,” he said. “That’s why I want the structure rebuilt. I want my children to know that place, I want the spiritual world of that place to be settled, to be understood.” Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation, which supports the survivors, is planning to raise $5 million for the rebuild. The corporation’s chief executive Tiffany McComsey said it is a matter of urgency to fulfil the wishes of survivors, who are all aged in their 70s and 80s. “If there isn’t an investment now in supporting survivor-led healing solutions, supporting Stolen Generations survivors and their communities, in having these sites returned to them so they can create healing centres, museums, keeping places, that opportunity is going to be lost,” she said. “It’s only through their direct experiences of what happened in those places and those sites that this truth can be told.” 13YARN 13 92 76 Lifeline 13 11 14 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028 By Keira JENKINS, AAP A large crowd gathered last Saturday at the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Home site, marking 100 years since its establishment.
