By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
ABORIGINAL people in the Dandenong area will soon have a new place to gather.
The City of Casey late last month approved a report that will see work on the gathering place in Doveton – the first in the municipality – start in July.
A disused building in Agonis Street in the heart of the Linden Place shopping precinct is to be refurbished at an estimated cost of $500,000.
The State Government is understood to be providing $120,000 to the project, while Casey will provide $380,000.
Preliminary plans for the gathering place include maternal and mental health facilities as well as heritage and cultural activity spaces.
Wurundjeri elder Diane Kerr, gathering place committee chairwoman, said the facility had been a long time coming.
“It’s exciting for our community to finally have a place in Casey we can call our own, with avenues for the Aboriginal youth,” she said.
“That’s what it’s for – to sit and yarn and teach young ones and bridge the gap between the elders and youth.”
Aunty Di said there was nowhere in the municipality for elders to collectively share their stories with Indigenous youngsters, and vice versa.
“There’s the Dandenong Aboriginal co-op, which Casey is a part of, but it’s hard for people to get down there, so to have something like this is really important,” she said.
There were 1455 Casey residents who identified as Aboriginal as of the 2011 census, according to statistics provided by the council, and 490 Greater Dandenong residents.
The Casey figure is understood to be the highest reported Aboriginal population in metropolitan Melbourne, and 45.6 per cent of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population in the municipality is below the age of 18.
Casey councillor Rafal Kaplon said the region’s indigenous community had been crying out for their own facility.
“Casey’s Indigenous community has lacked a space to call their own,” he said.
“I’m really happy the community took it upon themselves to bring this issue to council and work closely on it.”
The gathering place is expected to be open from the beginning of next year but the building will first be shared by staff and children from the Autumn Place Kindergarten for most of 2016.
The current Autumn Place kinder facility is set to be refurbished next year and the service will relocate to the Agonis Street site and share the building, before being reopened at its original location in 2017.
The kindergarten relocation is not included in the $500,000 figure estimated for the gathering place.
