Uncle Michael 'Widdy' Welsh unlocking the past to free the future
He was eight when they took him. A proud Wailwan man from NSW, Uncle Michael ‘Widdy’ Welsh has memories of dancing around the campfire with his grandparents, just before that life was destroyed.
Uncle Michael is a survivor of the Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home (KBH), run by the NSW Government to house Aboriginal boys forcibly removed from their families between 1924 and 1970.
“We submitted to the way they wanted to treat us because they flogged us and starved us and that type of thing," Uncle Michael tells Living Black.
“I’ve been blessed in a lot of ways because I only had five and a half years in that hell hole."
"I got culturally experienced from my uncle who learned from my grandpa… I know how to live off the land, I know how to hunt for food.
I want to teach my children to have that chance.
"There are a lot of other brothers who never had that and have no idea."
Uncle Michael‘s totem is the black duck, and his connection with that dreaming keeps him strong.
Now a passionate advocate for ending inter-generational trauma, Uncle Michael is determined to pass his culture to his grandchildren and to help reconstruct identity and restore the structure of the family.
This is his life’s mission as a grandfather, as a Wailwan man and in his role as a Board Member of the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation (KBHAC).
KBHAC was founded with the explicit aim of encouraging and supporting sustainable healing programs that address both the legacy of abuse experienced by KBH survivors and the inter-generational trauma experienced by their descendants.
Together, KBHAC and the Coota Girls Aboriginal Corporation have commended the NSW Government’s response earlier this month to the Upper House Inquiry into Reparations for the Stolen Generations and the 35 recommendations put forward in its consensus report, Unfinished Business.
The implementation of the NSW Government’s response in the form of a $73 million reparations package has come too late for many. For those who survive and for their families, KBHAC and Coota Girls Aboriginal Corporation look forward to using this new resource to reach out and support the collective healing that only they can provide.
NSW Stolen Generations receive compensation
“I need their help to give my children a better direction in life," says Uncle Michael.
"It’s not just all of us who were removed now. It’s a disease that’s right across this land, I feel."
"They’re passing away pretty quickly.
"The money is a beautiful thing but it’s not the thing that’s going to fix this.
"If we get the recognition, the stories out and the meetings and the gatherings together with our children… they need to meet each other and they need to talk to each other – they need to develop a vision for themselves.
"The pain must stop with us."
Listen to the full interview with Uncle Michael on Living Black Radio below:
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Family healing at the KBH 90th commemoration, former Kinchela Boys Home Site: Uncle Michael with his sons William and Bobbee Dixon
Uncle Michael needs his children to understand his culture and to speak his language. It is a language that lives still, despite popular belief.
"So much of it has been lost but there’s so much of it out there that is valuable that we need to hook our families into."
"We love and share. We don’t own and take and possess."
Up to 85 KBH survivors are still alive today, now predominantly in their 60s and 70s like Uncle Michael.
Members of their immediate families number in the thousands, many of whom continue to suffer due to their family member’s internment at Kinchela. They face lack of acceptance by Aboriginal communities, a sense of not belonging, inability to discuss trauma and continued high rates of removal - and the removal of their own children.
Uncle Michael has tasked himself with an immense challenge, and his focus on restoration of the family structure is key to repairing some of the damage.
“Not only are we trying to get our pathway back to our own culture, we’ve got to educate the people who keep on coming in and knocking us down.
"They don’t seem to have the same type of loving and affection for family and land the way that we’ve been given.
"We love and share. We don’t own and take and possess."
Uncle Michael shares his story in Steven McGregor’s documentary Servant or Slave. Watch it now, below, or on SBS on Demand.