What We Offer
Welcomes to Country (and Harbour), blessings, smokings and yarning circles.
Welcomes to Country (and Harbour), blessings, smokings and yarning circles.
Welcomes to Country (and Harbour), blessings, smokings and yarning circles.
Have your event respect the spirit of country correctly and meaningfully with an elder both living here and using local philosophy and language.
Sydney Harbour Aboriginal canoe discoveries.
Welcomes to Country (and Harbour), blessings, smokings and yarning circles.
Welcomes to Country (and Harbour), blessings, smokings and yarning circles.
Popular with Sydneysiders and tourists, our one-on-one canoe tours gets people seeing the harbour through Aboriginal eyes. It's internationally rated by CruiseCritic and are available for 1-4 people for 2hr/half/full day.https://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/articles.cfm?ID=5044
Reconciliation Action Plan/RAP guidance and consultancy.
Welcomes to Country (and Harbour), blessings, smokings and yarning circles.
Reconciliation Action Plan/RAP guidance and consultancy.
By driving reconciliation through often simple organisational changes within businesses, NFPs and government departments, Reconciliation Action Plans are the success story of the past decade.
However, the RAP process is often a tough nut to crack without First Nations guidance.
Sydney Harbour Elder is expert at giving that guidance. We create safe and knowledgeable spaces that allow the limbs of reconciliation to happen for the mutual benefit of both the organisation as well as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities around them.
Matt Poll B.A.
Culture and Professional services.
Reconciliation Action Plan/RAP guidance and consultancy.
Matt Poll has worked in Museums and Art Galleries for a nearly 20 years, for the past 7 years Matt has worked as the Assistant Curator of the Macleay Museum Indigenous Heritage Collections as well as being the University of Sydney Repatriation Project Officer.
Matt has previously worked as the Artistic Director of Boomalli Aboriginal artists cooperative as well as other positions at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Wollongong City Gallery.
Matt has also worked as the University of Sydney Repatriation project officer since 2009.
Matts current masters by research project seeks to further develop methods of understanding the ways contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island artists have used Museum collections, historic records and archival materials in the reconstruction of cultural identities, exploring how visual artists, in particular, have developed auto-ethnographic methods of engaging with historical information outside of academic frameworks. https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-poll-57790094/
Mike Butler J.D. B.Eng.
Culture and Professional services.
Culture and Professional services.
Mike Butler has been connecting with First Nations communities for nearly 25 years in places including PNG, NZ, Vanuatu and Australia.
He is a legal, communications and engagement professional with an engineering background. His Aboriginal blood flows from his mother's mother from Central Queensland and since the early 1970s he has grown on Sydney Harbour.
Mike has worked alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups in the NT, Qld and NSW in development, land and compensation claims as well governance, commercial legals and advocating for Aboriginal parents inside NSW's child welfare system.
He has assisted in the creation and implementation of Reconciliation Action Plans for non-First Nations businesses including training of key staff.
He is also a trained mediator, is a capable facilitator and an active member of Australia's peak engagement body the International Association for Public Participation.
Culture and Professional services.
Culture and Professional services.
Culture and Professional services.
Sydney Harbour Elder engages to facilitate First Nations projects and research or to conduct cultural competence training.
We have worked with NSW Health, the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, University of Sydney, UTS, the National Centre for Cultural Competence, Parramatta Gaol redevelopment and $1b Westmead hospital redevelopment. All benefited from our knowledge, skills and ideas. We are a reliable pathway for connecting with First Nations people and cultural knowledge available.
Indigenous culture and knowledge done properly
Your Welcome to Our Country
Sydney Harbour Elder is a naturally better way of bringing the proper Aboriginal presence to a place where it looks like it had long disappeared because it's getting the Aboriginal people who are living on Sydney Harbour today to prove that we never left it.
Our goal to make it easier for businesses and people wanting to connect with Aboriginal culture and spirits past and in more authentic and meaningful Indigenous experiences for all.
Connection to country is key for us. Our welcomes to country are only done by local elders with particular knowledge to that part of Sydney. Our cultural educators enthral with lived, inherited and learned expertise and our track record of welcoming and working with performers from across Australia gives greater options for all budgets,
Start a conversation with Sydney Harbour Elder today on 0405 170778 to see how we can make your next Indigenous encounter unforgettable.
Unforgettable Harbour Experiences and Unique Harbour Welcomes.
Sydney Harbour Elder began when Pyrmont elder Mark Merriman started taking one person at a time in a Koori canoe to show the harbour through our eyes. Today we can now bring up 80 people onto the water for sunset cruises, whale watching, educational tours, our unique Aboriginal harbour welcomes on water and something else of your choice.
We've access to beautifully restored historical harbour vessels, Aboriginal guides who know every knook and cranny of our harbour and special permission to go where other commercial boats cannot. We can help plan and manage your whole harbour experience or simply be part of your harbour idea. Either way Sydney Harbour Elder will get you seeing the harbour very differently.
Cost: $350/600 half-day/full-day 1-2 people. For 3 people or more rates start at $30/$50p.p. half-day/full-day.
Land tours, filming, education and research
Discover the hidden and Aboriginal histories of Pyrmont and Sydney Harbour with our excellent land tours. Sydney Harbour Elder has a wealth of stories and knowledge, many that you won't hear anywhere else. Sydney Harbour Elder's student engagement program delight both non-Indigenous and Indigenous school kids with tool and spear making (and optional throwing!) workshops. Sydney Harbour Elder can also be engaged for research. The University of Sydney, UTS and Parramatta Gaol redevelopment have employed us for knowledge on Aboriginal life around Sydney Harbour and institutionalisation of Indigenous people by the state as well as the importance and revival of Indigenous culture for all Australians.