YarnUp 7: Carol-Lee Brown

YarnUp 7 with Carol-Lee Brown

The YarnUp series, presented in partnership with Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation, spotlights the achievements and stories of incredible First Nations volunteers. In the seventh chapter, First Nations Volunteer and Mum, Carol-Lee Brown, discusses motherhood, connection to Culture, coming together and more.

Discover Carol’s story today:

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers and listeners are advised, this series contains stories of a sensitive nature and images, voices or names of people who may have died.

Full Interview

Facilitated by Tribal Warrior Talent

My name is Carol-Lee Brown, my Mum’s from Moree, and my Dad is from Kempsey. Kempsey is Dunghutti Country, and Moree is Dunghutti & Kamilaroi. I’m still learning & discovering my family’s totems.

Moree is a small town with a robust Aboriginal community, and Kempsey is pretty small too. My mum’s side lives in Moree and is a central point of our family gatherings. Whether it’s a laid-back BBQ or celebrating Christmas, we make it a point to come together. Lots of our family from Sydney and all over the place head up to Moree, or we swing by Kempsey, to get together, reconnect and catch up on how we’ve all been going through the year or so.

Last Christmas, the whole family from Moree came down to La Perouse to celebrate with our family down here. Aunts, nieces, nephews—all my cousins—spent our Christmas at my sister’s house. Reconnecting is so valuable to us because we’re all spread all over the place—Sydney, Moree, Newcastle, Muswellbrook, Mt Druitt, St Marys, and Waterloo.

Our family maintains a strong connection to Culture through programs like Souths Cares, who run Aboriginal dancing and hold community events.

Maroubra has been my home for almost my entire life, growing up in the community of La Perouse. Dad’s roots trace back to La Perouse too, so this area is important to us too. From my grandma’s house in La Perouse to Dad’s Granville upbringing, our family’s history is connected with this area. My nan now owns her home in Mascot, where I spent a lot of time as a baby. Now I’m 24, my parents have moved to the Sutherland Shire with a lot of our family residing there.

So with our family being spread all over the place, getting to reconnect every now and again is so important to us. Even unplanned gatherings like running into Mob at Yabun keep us connected and are always a good thing. This year, instead of Yabun, our family went to an event near the lookout at Yarra Bay.

It was good to be there as so many of our roots are in La Pa and I practically grew up in La Pa and Chifley. When we moved from Chifley to Pagewood, I went to Matraville Sports High School, and before that, I was at La Perouse Primary school. I had left high school in year 10 and then had two beautiful kids. Two boys – now 4 and 15 months.

Giving birth to something that’s yours is amazing; it’s the best experience, and I’m so proud to be nurturing those two and watching them grow. Despite the initial fear, the realisation that you’re nurturing another human intelligence is such a precious feeling. They’ve grown so fast now, within a blink of an eye.

Watching them grow, from childcare to pre-school, and now onto big school, is a journey full of love and joy. I love being a mum, I just love it. They’re at that age now where they’ve started developing their personalities and growing into their bodies. It’s like another little you, growing up but having their own experiences, so it’s amazing.

That tangible connection to Culture keeps me driven to keep giving back to my community.

Our family maintains a strong connection to Culture through programs like Souths Cares, who run Aboriginal dancing and hold community events. Volunteering at local Aboriginal organisations, attending community programs since my youth, and supporting the growth of younger girls through community boxing programs have all been such important elements of my journey.

We stay involved with any Cultural events that are happening, and sometimes we just drop into the local Aboriginal organisations to yarn and remain tapped into the community. My community involvement usually looks like hands-on volunteering at events and programs, ensuring Elders are well taken care of, and actively participating in the Souths Cares programs, helping all the kids with their dance preparations.

I went on a trip near Gerringong, me and my son. We had cultural experiences—learning about water holes, whales, practicing traditional Culture, weaving, making art & boomerangs, and understanding the old ways of our Ancestors and Elders as we weave baskets and yarn about all the old generations. It’s truly incredible knowing about what happened back in the days and how our Ancestors used to eat and survive using the old ways.

That tangible connection to Culture keeps me driven to keep giving back to my community. Getting away to be on Country, going somewhere where you’re not familiar with and learning new things as well, especially your own culture, rekindles something that’s innately part of you.

My Culture is a huge part of my life, and it’s important to me that I’m not just sharing my Culture with non-Indigenous people, but that it’s a cultural exchange with all other Mob.

From my background in dancing at Matraville High School to helping out and dancing with the kids and watching my Mob connected to Culture around me, gives me a moment to step back and think, ‘Wow, I love to be sharing my Culture’. So I give back to the culture too, teaching the kids, helping the kids out and then sharing what I know with them.

The group keeps growing; we started out with just 5 kids, that extended to 10 and now we have around 30 kids who come to dance. Seeing that many kids coming to dancing is another ‘Wow’ moment. Especially when they get to experience a Welcome to Country or a Smoking Ceremony when they’re dancing as well.

My baby sister danced at the Opera House once, and it was really good dancing in front of Parliament House. They’re just such a good crew who dance, and they are learning something new about their culture every day. I’m just so happy to be passing that on to the next generation that will pass it on to the next.

My Culture is a huge part of my life, and it’s important to me that I’m not just sharing my Culture with non-Indigenous people, but that it’s a cultural exchange with all other Mob. Last year we had some Mob from Alice Springs who came out to stay while I was working at the NCIE, and it was amazing hearing them speak their lingo and teach us some of it too.

We also had some First Nations Mob from America come to Sydney for a cultural exchange, and they loved the way our people dance, and they were gobsmacked by everything about our culture. It makes me so happy to hear them say that ‘you dance well’ and how much they like it. I’m glad they did as well.

We were so fascinated, to learn about their culture as well, the differences and the similarities between our cultures and histories. I just think it’s so amazing how everybody’s got their own culture. Even my brother-in-law, who is Indonesian, I’m gobsmacked by how he can speak his lingo so much with his family, like I wanna learn that too!

The first step is just to make the time to listen. Once somebody can make that time, listen first, then maybe get involved and put your hand up to help out.

In the future, I want to see my kids go the same way I went, continuing their journey and passing on the Culture to the next generation. So we’re learning and doing everything about Culture so they know it. Koori dancing, the lingo, the artwork, to know how the Elders and Ancestors all survived and even nowadays, like how we dance and stuff for Parliament House.

It’s about creating a legacy that they can then pass on to their kids.

We all need to have a voice to continue getting us further and sharing our Culture. That’s what I wish; we just want our voice to be heard. There are Black Aboriginal people dying in custody, and our kids are being taken in the system—it’s just not fair, and we need to be able to have a say in our matters and be more out there for people to hear our voices and know where we’re coming from.

So that’s what I would want other people, not our cultural people, to make the time and the effort to just listen to us. For non-Indigenous mob, it’s a call to listen to understand and educate yourselves about our experience. That call is for understanding, not judgment. It’s about making time to listen, to educate, and to empathise with our experiences.

Listen to our voice and understand where we’re coming from, and not to just blame us or agree with what other people are saying bad about us. I know we’re all not perfect, but there’s reasons why some people are like that, and for our Mob, it’s important not to use those reasons as an excuse as well.

So I hope we can keep seeing all Mob and all different mobs come together and continue supporting us with what we’re doing.

When there’s so much strength in our Culture, it’s impenetrable; there can be no excuses for being a statistic when you’re connected to your culture, like that’s going to take over and you’re just going to have the most amazing momentum and drive.

The Culture is never going away; you know, it’s never going to leave. We just want to invite people to listen to our voice. So for non-Indigenous mob, it’s important to keep contributing and to hear what we’ve got to say. Not just taking a stance to go against us or being rude about it and judgmental. The first step is just to make the time to listen. Once somebody can make that time, listen first, then maybe get involved and put your hand up to help out.

Looking forward, community events like the Mum’s & Bubs program and yarn circles in Redfern alongside helping out with all the other programs and raising my kids will keep me busy. All these events are opportunities to continue weaving our stories, discussing issues affecting our Mob, creating artworks, and passing on the Culture to future generations. Platforms like NAIDOC week continue to be important in amplifying our voices and fostering support from all Mobs and diverse communities.

So I hope we can keep seeing all Mob and all different mobs come together and continue supporting us with what we’re doing.

Learn more

About YarnUp

To learn more about this project, visit our webpage, celebrating our partnership with Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation.

About Tribal Warrior

Tribal Warrior Aboriginal Corporation website (Tribal Warrior) is a non-profit organisation founded and directed by Aboriginal peoples, with Elders from various NSW Aboriginal nations at its helm. For more information on their range of programs, cultural tours and experiences, visit the Tribal Warrior website.