Cultivating a legacy that leaves no one behind

Imagine you’re in a darkened room. It’s a large room, filled with people who, much like you, are sitting at tables topped with plates of fruit.

A group of women sit on a stage at the front of the room. A moment ago, they were joking about how their plus-ones were napping in the audience. One points at a young girl, her daughter, and says, “That little girl over there knows how to manage a retail store.”

If this scene unfolded before you as it did for those who attended FW’s International Women’s Day First Nations Breakfast and Panel, you may have smiled in amusement.

But as Wiradjuri woman Jarin Baigent spoke those words at the Witchery and Westpac sponsored event, she wasn’t smiling. She was dead serious.

“Our kids are, quite simply, the future,” the Trading Blak founder and owner of activewear brand Jarin Street told those at the Four Seasons Hotel on Gadigal Land, Sydney, last week.

“[They’re] here. They’re with us. They’re on our hips. They’re in our businesses.”

Rachael Sarra, Jarin Baigent and host Gabrielle Ebsworth address a sold out breakfast panel on Gadigal Land, Sydney

Welcoming children into workspaces has been a part of Indigenous Australian culture for tens of thousands of years. It’s a crucial method for passing knowledge from generation to generation – one that isn’t commonly practised in highly individualistic Western societies.

“An Aboriginal approach to doing things, it’s very different, because it’s all about the collective,” explained Wonnarua, Bunjalung, Birri-Gubba and Gungalu woman Mundanara Bayles.

“The tens of thousands of years of knowledge that developed or evolved from this land… we are carrying that knowledge from our mothers and our grandmothers.”

“Now we have a platform, not just for First Nations peoples, but for any underrepresented minority voice in his country.”

However, cultural knowledge and values aren’t the only things being kept alive by these practices, with the memories and dreams of lost loved ones being just as central. 

“If you don’t know my family history, you’re missing a whole lot about who I am and why I do what I do,” Bayles said.

She described how her grandmother, Maureen Watson, founded Radio Redfern, now known as Koori Radio. Her great uncle, Ross Watson, founded the Brisbane Indigenous Media Association, which runs the Murri Country radio station for Triple A. Her father, Tiga Bayles, was also a prominent broadcaster and activist who contributed to the establishment of both previously mentioned stations.

“Here I am now, you know, picking up from where he left off,” the Founder of BlakCast, Australia’s first podcasting network that is owned and led by First Nations people, concluded.

“Now we have a platform, not just for First Nations peoples, but for any underrepresented minority voice in his country.”

Torres Strait Islander obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Alicia Veasey expressed a similar sentiment.

“My dad was an Aboriginal Health Worker, and started our local Aboriginal Medical Service,” she said.

“I’ve always known I’d work in health, and so each degree has just been another step in that path.”

Dr Veasey recently completed her third master’s degree in social change leadership, which she said affirmed Indigenous knowledge and collectivism in a way that she hadn’t previously experienced.

“We have the solutions for not just our issues, but everyone’s,” she said.

“I really wanted to create something that was not only really supporting my heart and soul and my spirit and my culture, but creating something that I can extend to my community.”

It’s a reality that’s become even more apparent now that health system leaders are adopting community-controlled healthcare, which Dr Veasey noted was ‘officially’ pioneered fifty years ago by Redfern’s Aboriginal Medical Service.

Speaking as the CEO of Wyanga Aboriginal Aged Care, which was founded thirty years ago, Baigent described how a similar pattern is occurring in the aged care system.

“Wyanga was founded because my aunty Sylvia acknowledged that Aboriginal people were not being adequately cared for,” she said.

“That model is now seen throughout the entire country.”

For Goreng Goreng artist and designer Rachael Sarra, the drive to give back to community is a fundamental aspect of her dedication to embodying her culture.

“When I created my business, I really wanted to create something that was not only really supporting my heart and soul and my spirit and my culture, but creating something that I can extend to my community,” she said.

It’s a goal she continually strives for by donating a portion of what she earns from every project to Sisters Inside, which supports incarcerated women and children.

Tanya Hosch and host Gabrielle Ebsworth address a sold out breakfast panel on Gadigal Land, Sydney

International Women’s Day in 2024 was also the day of the state funeral for celebrated Indigenous rights advocate Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue. Before heading to the funeral, Tanya Hosch, Executive General Manager of Inclusion and Social Policy at the AFL, spoke to breakfast attendees about Dr O’Donoghue and the lasting impression she left 

“Lowitja was an absolutely incredible leader… I was very, very fortunate that she invested in me as a young woman,” she said.

“It is a sad day, but it’s also a great and fitting day that International Women’s Day will be the day that she is recognised and honoured for the incredible contribution that she didn’t just make for blackfellas, she made for this country.”

Legacy as conceptualised by Western societies is self-centred, self-serving and self-made. That is not Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue’s legacy, nor is it the one being cultivated by the First Nations women on the panel.

Sarra spoke of a legacy that carries all who came before, all who currently are and all who are yet to be when she said, “For us, as Blak women, legacy is at the centre of everything.”

It’s a legacy that we all need to learn from and live for.

EVENT ART: Alysha Menzel
PHOTOGRAPHER: Carly Earl, Flashpoint Labs
HAIR AND MAKE UP: Jasmin Lo
LOCATION: Four Seasons