Today I woke up at 9 am because I had to be downstairs in the hotel lobby at 9:15. After the group met at 9:15 we made our way over to UTS (University of Technology Sydney) to meet with Dr. Craig Longman, a Lawyer. We went up to the 17th floor and sat down at a circle table and at our seat, there were piles of paper in front of us. Looking at these photos at first I was very intimidated, but once the professor started talking to us, the papers made sense and went along with his talking points. The topic of today's lecture was Lawyering for Change: Deploying law with First Nations in Australia. We started learning about all of the hardships and the trouble that the indigenous people of Australia have gone through and have continued to go through. Dr. Longman was telling us about how they got their land taken away from them and how they are treated horribly by the police and the legal system. Dr. Longman is a lawyer for them and wants to fight for their rights and fight against the implicit bias that is against the aboriginal people. It was really sad and hard to hear. A lot of the aboriginal children are taken away from them because the parent's arent seemed fit to take care of their children which is simply not true. We also then learned about cases of three children who were killed by a serial killer and the police did nothing about it because they did not believe the abrigionals. It was super hard to hear all of this because I do not think that a lot of us were expecting to dig so deep like this on our trip to Australia. This to me was such an eye-opening experience because Australia is not just kangaroos and koalas, there is a lot that is happening that needs to be fixed. After hearing all of this, the group had to take a minute and digest what we just heard so we ended up taking a coffee break in the middle of the session to debrief and process what we just heard. When we went back up to the classroom, we then got into the topic of gun violence in the United States and a lot of the group spoke their mind about how they feel about it and how it is a scary thing that is going on in America. Although they do not have this problem in Australia, we also learned about the protests that took place outside the town hall in Australia in 2020 when the George Floyd killing happened in America Another professor by the name of Dr. Paddy Gibson came and taught us about taking action. It was so fascinating to see how many people showed up to the town hall protest in Australia about it with Black Lives Matter signs and more. This protest was not approved at first because it was breaking COVID-19 laws, but after so many people showed up anyway, it got approved because the government did not want to look powerless. This whole meeting was very powerful and it definitely bonded us as a group because it was very emotional and hard to talk about and listen to. My main takeaway was that our generation needs to speak up and take action because that will cause change.
After our very powerful meeting with Dr. Longman we got lunch inside of that building and then we all sat outside as a group and ate lunch on the steps because it was very sunny outside and the sunshine felt so good. Lunch was pretty quiet because a lot of us were still processing about what we had just learned. I had a salad for lunch. We then walked over to meet with our next teacher, Dr. Andrew Novack. This presentation was supposed to be about E-sports but since the group was so emotionally drained it is really hard to go from talking about real problems in the world that are going on right now then transferring right to sports. So, this presentation was really diving in deep into the history of Australia, their people, their exports, and more. It was interesting to learn more about the history of their land, their health system, and the animals they have. At the end, we did a Q and A and got to ask about anything and everything relating to Australia. My question was what is the one thing we should do before we left Sydney and the professor's response was the bridge climb. I looked into the bridge climb but it was booked for the time we were in Sydney. After the Q and A was over around 4:30 we walked back to the hotel.
We all got ready for dinner and headed by tram to a rooftop place. We outside and the views of Sydney from the rooftop were breathtaking. The food was really good and after we all finished our dinner we headed to the Sydney Opera house because vivid, which is a light show was taking place. The opera house was lit up with all the different designs they kept switching. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, I loved all the vibrant colors that were projecting. After we watched the lights, we walked around the harbor and got ice cream, and then made our way back to the hotel by tram. Overall, the day was really hard and emotional for the whole group but it was conversations that needed to happen and realities that needed to be faced and talked about.
-Marni N.
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