Last Wednesday 1 August our boys were visited during assembly by Kristian Goodacre (ON’ 02), who came to talk about his experiences working as a mentor for the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME).

AIME is an organisation that began in 2005 in the grounds of The University of Sydney , and has gone on to become one of the biggest Indigenous programs in the country. In fact, each year more than 2000 university students volunteer to be involved in the mentoring program, despite the fact that they only have enough positions for 140 mentors.

After playing a short video about the origins and initiatives behind AIME, Kristian encouraged students to seek out more information about the rich and diverse history of the Australian Indigenous people, taking advantage of the wealth of information now available through sites such as YouTube. He asked the boys to then go out and share what they learned with their parents, teachers and students.

Kristian spoke passionately about how his own discovery of “who came before” helped him develop his own identity both as an Australian and as an Old Newingtonian. He finished his speech with one final message—“There is more to Australia than Olympic swimming, Bondi Beach, and The Shire. There is 60,000 years of indigenous history waiting to be discovered”.

Afterwards Kristian (pictured above seated centre) caught up with students David Dixon (11/MA) (left) and Robbie Townsend (12/MA) (rignt) two of AIMES mentees at Newington, along with Head of Boarding, Mr Mark Oliphant, and proud former teacher Mr Andrew Davies.

On August 31 Newington College will be supporting AIME by partaking in the National Hoodie Day. Boys who would like to be involved are asked to purchase a hoodie from www.nationalhoodieday.com before the day and wear it to school, showing their support for giving Indigenous kids the same opportunities as all Australians.