Local women started the group in 2006 to raise awareness
about the health of Aboriginal Australians.
Dancer Kerry Welsh,
an Aboriginal Health Promotions Officer for the Sydney South West Area Health
Service, said the Koori Line Dance Group was still getting used to the news
they had won gold.
“We are just over the moon,” she told Central.
She said it all started one day. when her friends were
talking about what they could do to change their lives.
They decided they wanted to go to the Tamworth Country Music
Festival, which draws many Aboriginal country music fans.
“Now, fine dancing has become my life,” Ms Welsh
said.
She said that line dancing was a great social activity and
its health benefits were amazing.
“The life expectancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people is 17 years Jess than other Australians.
“We have to do something about our health situation and
it gets people out, and active and having a good time.”
The group meets twice a week at the Redfern Town Hall.
Picture: Phil Rogers – Redfern-based Koori Line Dance Group
won a gold medal at the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
SAYING SORRY
NEWTOWN Aboriginal woman Kerry
Welsh will take her father – one of the stolen generations
-to Canberra to
hear Prime Minister Kevin Rudd say the one word he has waited decades to hear reports
Lisa Capozzi in Central 6th
February 2008.
“To hear those words in that moment will just mean so
much,” Welsh told Central.
I think under the new leadership it is a major step into
healing our people and Australian people as a nation.”
She
said her elderly father had never spoken about his experiences. The Prime
Minister will apologise to the stolen generations at the opening of parliament
on February 13.