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Students from Kalkaringi School have used Freedom Day Festival celebrations to share the story of striking Gurindji stockmen.
Twenty-eight Kalkaringi students were joined by 13 students from Barunga School, east of Katherine, as they re-traced the steps of Gurindji men, women and children who walked off Wave Hill Station in 1966 in what is still Australia's longest running industrial dispute.
The annual festival at Kalkaringi, 600km southwest of Katherine, celebrates the role striking Gurindji played in the fight for equal pay for Aboriginal workers and also as pioneers of land rights.
Students re-enacted the walk the day prior to the August festival, trekking about 14km from Old Wave Hill Station to the Kalkaringi cemetery in about four-and-a-half hours.
Assistant principal Brenton Hobart said the walk-off re-enactment by students "looks like becoming an annual event".
"We did it last year as a bit of a spur of the moment thing, but a lot more planning went into it this year," he said.
"The elders spoke with students about the old days on Wave Hill Station, when Aboriginal stockmen and station domestics were paid in food rations and housed in makeshift humpies with no access to power or running water.
"They were quite animated as they told their stories and it was quite an emotional experience for some of them. Above all, there was an enormous sense of pride that these kids were re-enacting what they did in 1966.
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"The elders spoke about what it was like working for Vesteys at Wave Hill and also about the significance of what the strike at Wave Hill has helped achieve.
"It was also a great experience for the kids from Barunga. They learned a lot and it tied in with some of the work they've been doing in school leading up to Freedom Day."
It is hoped other schools will take up the opportunity join Kalkaringi School in re-tracing the steps at future Freedom Day festivals.
Future plans could extend the trail eight kilometres, finishing at Wattie Creek where strikers made camp.