The 49 Indigenous survivors from Kinchela Boys Home want to turn the site into a museum and place of healing as they mark 100 years since the institution began operations.
Sending bedwetting small children to stand in a swamp was just one of a myriad of horrors endured by hundreds of boys at the notorious Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Home.
Uncle Roger and the remaining 49 Kinchella survivors have shared their experiences to ensure the notorious stolen generation institution isn't a forgotten chapter in Australia's history. Uncle Roger Jarrett considers himself lucky he was taken to Kinchela Boys Home when he was 11, unlike younger boys who had no idea about their culture."When you come to the gates, you lose your identity and your culture stays the other side, I became number 12," Uncle Roger said.
"The only time you used to get food in your belly when the big boys used to work in the dairy used to give you some food when they walked past, but if they got caught they'd be in the same position as you." Uncle Roger said many of the home's staff were returned servicemen, who he said were not fit to educate children.
Uncle James Michael "Widdy" Welsh, known as number 36, has forgiven the Kinchela Boys Home staff who abused him."When she let go, she said, my grandson, you take that and give that to everybody that you see," he said.He said he experienced years of anger, the pain of which he dulled with alcohol, got into fights and taught his children how to defend themselves.
Stolen Generation Indigenous Aboriginal Abuse Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation Kempsey Local Aboriginal Lands Council
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