This year’s Orange NAIDOC Week celebrations may be without the traditional street march and large public events, but the spirit for the week will be just as strong and vibrant as ever, Orange NAIDOC Committee Chair Gerald Power.

Delayed and limited by COVID-19 restrictions, the smaller than normal NAIDOC Week program will kick off this Sunday.

The national theme for this year’s NAIDOC Week is Always Was, Always Will Be [Aboriginal land!], said Mr Power, add that it is a time to reflect on our nation’s history, all 65,000 years that First Peoples navigated the land, farmed the land, studied and learned from the land. 

“The theme investigates how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples adapted to the changing environment, survived and thrived during drought, bush fires and rising sea levels. As well as looking at the innovative ways our First Peoples managed the land, such as fire stick farming, Mr Power said.

 The program of events will begin on Sunday with the Harmony Cup soccer tournament between local Indigenous and multicultural teams.

The Harmony Cup match is open for anyone to attend and is held November 8, from 11.30am to 3pm at Sir Jack Brabham Park and will includes Indigenous and multicultural dance and food.

Orange NAIDOC Week will be officially opened with a small group of local Elders, and community members participating in a smoking ceremony, flag raising ceremony and a welcome on Monday, November 9.

Again, due to COVID-19, attendance at the opening will be limited, but the ceremony will be livestreamed on Council’s Facebook page as well as the NAIDOC Week Celebrations — Orange NSW Facebook Page.

The NAIDOC Week Facebook page is also where you will find this year NAIROC Competition. Instead of the traditional concert spectacular, this year school and dance groups were invited to film their performances for an online talent show.

“I've had a look at some of the entries and they look really good,” said Orange NAIDOC Committee Deputy Chair, Corey McLean.

Corey is in the process of putting together the competition entries into the one video which will be launched on the Facebook on Thursday night.

“Next Thursday night they’ll go straight to the Facebook page once I put them together into a little bit of a show and I'll do a poll on our page so after everyone has finished watching they can go and vote for their favourite. I'll probably run that poll for a week to give people time to view it and to have a vote on it,” he said.

On the Tuesday night, Corey is also putting together a highlights package of past NAIROC concerts, so people can relieve some of the great moments of the past few years.

“NAIROC is a pretty popular event and a lot of the performances we've had at NAIROC have been very emotional… This will give the community a chance to relieve these great performances and it will be a trip down memory lane for the kids in it.”

Although they won’t get to gather in person, the annual Elders’ lunch will proceed, with meals being delivered to homes around town.

“It has been very hard this year with all the restrictions in place, normally we would gather the Elders somewhere at a venue and we'll have people come and cook a feed up, but this year it is going to be meals delivered to their houses. So our Elders are still getting acknowledged with a special lunch in NAIDOC week.” said Corey.

“We are trying to do as much stuff as we can online this year, just to keep our community safe, and not putting anybody at risk… We’ve been pretty lucky to get as many events together as this with all the restriction.”

The week will conclude with the NAIDOC Week golf day — an 18-hole, 2-person Ambrose at Wentworth Golf Club. More details for this and all the week’s events can be found on the NAIDOC Week Celebrations — Orange NSW Facebook Page.