Australian South Sea Islanders (Port Jackson) are excited to travel to Honiara, Solomon Islands to share in a 'Finding Family workshop'. Venue: National Museum of Solomon Islands, Honiara, Solomon Islands. Dates – 28th November to 1st December 2014 Blackbirding affected 80 Islands in the Western Pacific including the Solomon Islands, (formerly the New Hebrides) in Melanesia, and the Loyalty Islands, Samoa, Kiribati, Rotuma (Fiji), Tuvalu in Polynesia and Micronesia seeing some 55,000 recruited to Australia under the indentured labour trade akin to slavery. There were over 800 voyages from these Islands to Australia. The term “Australian South Sea Islander” refers to the Australian descendants of this trade. 26,460 Solomon Islanders were Blackbirded on indenture contracts to Australia and Fiji between 1870 and 1914. Today Mackay, Qld is home to our biggest ASSI community group which includes the largest number of Solomon Islands descendants in Australia, and is a sister city to Honiara. Fiji saw some 14,000 labourers from the Solomon Island descents - the Solomoni - who are the second largest community living outside the Solomon's. The past four years have been flagged as successful for Sydney based organisation Australian South Sea Islanders (Port Jackson) branch in securing groundbreaking seed funding opportunities to support their mission statement that 'Represent's the interests of the Australian South Sea Islander (ASSI) people with regards to supporting and promoting ASSI culture, identity, human rights, well-being, economic, social and educational interests within the context of being one of the many contributing cultures of non-European origin in Australia.' Trials and Tribulations of the work done over the past four years has seen the self determination by their board triumphant in securing significant funding support from philanthropic organisation the Christensen Fund to develop in partnership with the Solomon Island and Vanuatu communities 'Finding Family' workshops that will share knowledge on the Blackbirding History and the necessary source materials from a grass roots perspective that include helpful booklets that highlight 1. The history of blackbirding and personal ASSI stories 2. Ship logs archives that identify names of cargo and 3. Ship Diaries. Emelda Davis, president says ... ‘ASSI.PJ are grateful to the Christensen fund as their support has assisted ASSIs significantly to run this workshop and it will be an absolute honour to be working with the Solomon Island community. This is a big collaborative challenge for all as its an international platform and the objective will be to communicate affectively in working in with the museum staff and the many participants that will be attending in order to establish and sustain positive and meaningful relationship’s .The workshops will share history and screen culture through a skills exchange-learning process. The four-day workshop will be hosted by the Solomon Islands National Museum and attended by many Solomon Island community looking for family reconnection furthermore all collated information from the workshop will be shared back with the community in a hardcopy and digital format.’ There are seven ASSIs travelling from Queensland and NSW of which three are Solomon Island descendant and excited to reconnect with their homelands. Graham Mooney, who will also participate in the workshop, says... ‘I hale from Mackay in far north Queensland, which is home to our largest ASSI / Solomon Island descent community. I have both Aboriginal and South Sea Islander ancestry from my father and mother’s lines. My father was brought up strictly in Solomon Islander culture and still speaks pijin today. I was given the role as our biological family historian both on my father’s (Percival Mooney (senior) ancestry and lineage into the Solomon Islands and my mother’s (Jessie Darr) ancestry and lineage into my Vanuatu heritage. This will be my first time to visit the Solomon’s in my over 60 years. Our great grandfather, Kwailiu, and great grandmother, Orrani were brought to Queensland as indentured workers to grow sugarcane in Innisfail in far North Queensland. They came from Fataleka, Malaita, Solomon Islands in 1888. My father’s lineage as a Solomon Islander comes through his mother Cecily Fatnowna, the youngest daughter of Kwailiu and Orrani.’

• published: 26 Nov 2014
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