For the past four years, Felicia Morgan has gathered with elders in Shepparton for a Healing Walk, in remembrance of the Cummeragunja mission walk-off, and life at The Flats between Mooroopna and Shepparton not all that many decades ago.
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“Every year, we talk about The Flats and how Aboriginal people lived down there, making huts out of kerosene containers, working in the orchards,” Ms Morgan said.
“On Sorry Day, we do it in remembrance of the Stolen Generations — the children who were removed from The Flats in the 1950s.
“It's a sad story, but it's a history we need to embrace.”
Among the children removed under government policy was her father, Robert Peters, and her uncle Vincent.
“My nan Rita Peters had to separate all her children because her husband fell at a flour mill, broke his ribs and died,” Ms Morgan said.
“That left her with no provider and eight children — and back in the 50s, you needed a provider.”
Robert and Vincent were taken to the Kinchela Boys Home in Kempsey, NSW — Robert was just four years old, Vincent was 8.
“They didn't see their families again until they were 18 and 22,” Ms Morgan said.
“They told us they had a big tree there with hooks and chains, and sometimes when the boys ran away, they were chained to the tree.
“This was the true reality of what was going on back then — they had to grow up and live with this stuff.”
Now with three children and nine grandchildren of her own, Ms Morgan runs the Maya Living Free Healing Association with Elder Wayne Firebrace — to ensure no families have to go through what her father did all those years ago.
“What we do here is work with prevention, helping parents to be stronger so they're keeping their children instead of going through another era of children being removed,” she said.
In February, Ms Morgan and Mr Firebrace opened their first healing centre in Shepparton to run programs, counselling, education and support services for indigenous families.
Originally started by Yorta Yorta elders in Melbourne in 2004, this is the first time the group has had a presence in the Goulburn Valley.
“We're healing the trauma and the grief by supporting parents,” Ms Morgan said.
“We're funding the problem, not prevention, because you can't break the bond between a parent and a child, and these children are becoming institutionalised . . . we have got to do better than that.”
The Aboriginal Protection Act, allowing the removal of up to one in three children from their families, was eventually repealed in 1969.
But Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still being taken from their parents at disproportionate rates — making up 37 per cent of removed children despite representing six per cent of the total population.
“There's high statistics of Aboriginal children being removed in our welfare system because of domestic violence, drug and alcohol, homelessness, poverty, discrimination and racism,” Ms Morgan said.
“You can't get reconciliation if you're not addressing the problem. We are about preventing the problem . . . we want to do something about it before we go through another Stolen Generation.
“True reconciliation is about learning about colonisation — when we've been pushed down and pushed down and pushed down, it doesn't help us go forward.”
Ms Morgan has faced hardships in her own life.
For 13 years she endured domestic violence from her partner at home, while raising three young children.
“There was nothing, no support for me as a victim of domestic violence,” she said.
“What the police said to me is if you keep going back to this person, we're going to remove your children.”
Eventually, Ms Morgan took her children and started working as a family counsellor, helping parents overcome addiction and trauma.
“I've come back to my home town to share my experience about bettering my own life with my children — it was very very hard, but there's a way out,” she said.
“You don't have to let your circumstances be the better of you, and your children don't have to be the product of those circumstances.
“We want to be able to keep the family together so they can heal . . . at the end of the day, you need your mother, you need your parents.”
Still in its early stages, Shepparton Healing Centre is now open during the week at 2 Benalla Rd, Shepparton. It offers days for men, women and couples alongside its other programs.
“We're not government funded, it was all using our own funds and donations and this is how far we've come,” Ms Morgan said.
“What we're now hoping is to get a plaque on a rock at The Flats with all the children's names in remembrance of them — the ones who lived and the ones who died there.
“We want to let them know we remember these children, we remember their families — so when people walk there, they know what happened.
“Sorry is more than words — it's an action, to never do it again.”