[Raw interview: Norma Williams]

Rights Information
Reference
48942
Media type
Audio
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Rights Information
Reference
48942
Media type
Audio
Categories
Māori radio programs
Radio programs
Sound recordings
Duration
00:32:10
Taonga Māori Collection
Yes
Credits
RNZ Collection
Williams, Norma, Speaker/Kaikōrero
Nepia, Ted, Interviewer

An unedited interview in English by Māori broadcaster Ted Nepia with Norma Williams, an Aboriginal social worker and pre-school teacher in Sydney. [Date unknown but probably recorded during his visit to Australia in 1973.]

Norma begins by talking about her childhood. She was born Cowra, New South Wales, west of Sydney. She is one of eleven children. Her father was a seasonal shearer, and her mother had to work very hard to look after the children. She was schooled locally, on mission stations (or 'Aboriginal Reserves'). The mission school closed, and the children had to go to a white school where they were discriminated against. They then moved from the country to Sydney where she finished her schooling, and later got married.

She talks about the establishment of a pre-school, Murawina, and the 'breakfast sessions' she runs for Aboriginal children in Chippendale, inner Sydney. She explains how the breakfast sessions and pre-school are run. She also speaks about her efforts to rediscover her own Aboriginal culture.

Ted Nepia tells her something of the Māori experience in reviving their culture, and they discuss the differences between Te Reo Māori and the hundreds of different Aboriginal languages.

[According to the History of Aboriginal Sydney website: Murawina was an Aboriginal-run kindergarten in Chippendale, established in 1971 by Norma Williams and Milly Ingram of the Black Womens Action Committee.]