Jodi Walters, Principal, Swan Hill Specialist School:
The mural project has been such fun, and has allowed us to really grow our relationships with the Indigenous elders around us and the community around us.
We were lucky to employ Joel Campbell a few years ago, and we created a role for him around Indigenous Support Officer. And Joel's an amazing artist.
The students were working together. They had a story in mind. They wanted to tell the story of their learning journey and using Indigenous art, Joel's skills and the skills of all our students, every single student participated in creating those murals along the fence.
Now, of course, once you do something public like that, everyone wants in. Lots of the local principals said, oh, we'd love a mural at our school. Can you come and teach us about our totems and help us get that painted.
Joel Campbell, Indigenous Support Officer, Swan Hill Specialist School:
We've got kids that can paint by themselves, to kids that can't paint. So it's just including everybody. Like when we first started, it wasn't taking the best artist out of everybody. It was, let's just go out and let's do it. Let's see what happens.
And we had kids that probably never used a roller before in their life. And that's what Mural Mob is, it’s involving everybody within the school, doesn't matter what disability you got. You just get them out there and do it. And so I said, everybody makes mistakes and everybody messes up. And it's paint, you can paint over it.
With Indigenous culture, it's passing on the history and art expresses it. That's what I like about art. And some of these kids around here, probably do not have verbal, but when they do art, you can see how they're feeling.
And it's good with some of the kids they do come in some days and they can be angry. And if we do have Mural Mob, you can see them by the end of the day they're happy, like, oh, you wanted to go home at 10:00, but we’ve done Mural Mob, and look how happy you are, like oh, awesome.
Because Swan Hill is so dense with so many different tribes around them, some kids don't even know what tribe they are half the time. So it's more getting back to their roots. We want them to go back to their parents and go, oh, what tribe of we? They go and come back the next day and go ‘oh well I’m this person, I‘m this’ you know.
Even the non-Indigenous kids go back and go, well, you know, I’ve been here, my family's from here. And they go back and ask about their heritage. So it's good to go, you know, just open that mind up and then it's not just engaging at school, it’s going back and engaging back in their family culture.
Lachlan, Student, Swan Hill Specialist School:
We started with a small crew, and now we've gotten a lot bigger and we're doing bigger murals at different places. A lot of people are very interested in what we're doing, and I think we're doing pretty well.
It’s helped a lot with my probably handwriting and stuff like that, because, I mean, I'm very fast with what I do, so it’s helped me slow down and be more articulate.
Shakaya, Student, Swan Hill Specialist School:
I love coming to school because I love Mural Mob. It helps me calm down. It gets me out of my bad mood. Mural Mob helps me because I get back into my culture.
Jodi Walters, Principal, Swan Hill Specialist School:
We hope the project has meant further inclusion for our Indigenous families. Our students certainly love the work that they're doing. They feel really proud.
Lachlan, Student, Swan Hill Specialist School:
It's nice. Yeah, I mean, I love people to join in. We’re not excluding anyone at all. It's really fun doing Mural Mob.
[On-screen text: Disability Inclusion, Education for All – Education State / Victoria State Government / Education logo – Authorised by the Victorian Government, Melbourne]
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