[Nooky]
Respect.
Respect for ourselves, for our culture, for each other.
It helps us stand tall and be the warriors we always have been.
Our kids look to us, their mob, mums and dads, aunties, uncles, nans and pops, Elders, mates, to help show them the way.
But these days, there's lots of other voices they're hearing online and on social media.
And they're teaching our kids all kinds of bad, disrespectful stuff about women and girls.
Stuff that can lead to violence.
Violence against women isn't part of our culture.
It never has been.
So we need to drown out the noise from those bad influences and turn up our voices.
Not just online, but everywhere.
Because when we teach our kids respect for themselves, culture, Country and each other, things change and those disrespectful influencers, they lose. Because we've turned up respect.
The YoungN Deadly mob at Dijun Way, they know exactly what I'm talking about.
They know the best way to tackle those bad influences that hate on women is by turning up respect and teaching our boys all about healthy relationships.
Turn it up.
[YoungN Deadly Dijun Way]
The importance of bringing primary prevention to our youth is that it breaks the cycle.
We have seen the cycle go around and around and around for a very long time.
Dijun Way is a primary prevention family domestic violence program.
It's targeted at the ages of 12 to 18 years old.
We talk about what's unhealthy and healthy in a relationship.
With our program we promote positivity, equality and respect.
Dijun Way's program is designed to stop it at the start.
We're trying to install in the youth to change the thinking, change the ways.
Unhealthy signs that they thought might have been healthy or normalised, potentially now they know, actually that's not right, that's not how it should be.
I reckon Dijun Way is a really good program for young teens to learn. Because they might go in a relationship and the stuff that they might think that is normal, Dijun Way taught them that is wrong, shows them respect, loyalty, stuff like that, stuff to do in a healthy relationship.
These young Aboriginal boys understand on social media there's a lot of 'you've got to be the man', 'you've got to be strong', 'you don't show emotions'.
We want the youth to show emotions.
So, if they don't show emotions, we don't know how they're feeling, they can't express to their, if they're in a relationship, how they're feeling.
So, this is what we're trying to do.
We're trying to stop it at the start and educate the youth because it's the next generation coming up now and they can pass it down to generation to generation.
We want to try and educate and install positivity within the community.
I've taken on a lot about respecting women and girls.
It's all about trust, being loyal, communication.
Especially with online stuff, like, you wouldn't want to be doing anything online that you wouldn't send to your mother or your grandma, so that's exactly how I look at it.
We try and educate the kids not to follow everything you see on social media.
There's people online that could be toxic.
We want them to be role models in the community and to treat women with respect.
The negative stuff about women and girls that we see online all the time just isn't right.
We've learnt that through Dijun Way.
We give them the support, we give them the education.
We really give them the tools to be able to have healthy relationships.
We feel so proud about what we do as facilitators.
It's very rewarding promoting respect, equality, and just getting them to open up sometimes as well.
Some of the students that have been maybe the most withdrawn have been the best students by the end of it.
We need leaders, Indigenous men, to be there to protect, provide.
The importance of this is to have strong leaders.
We give them the tools and we break the cycle.
[Nooky]
Teaching our young people about respect can help stop violence towards women and girls at the start.
Teaching them about culture helps do the same thing.
Those online influencers hating on women, trying to fill our kids' ears with disrespectful stuff, they don't stand a chance against this.
Our voices.
Our culture.
So let's be loud and proud.
Let's raise our voices and teach our kids about respect every day in our communities, because respect for ourselves, our culture, our Country, and each other can drown out the voices of disrespect. Anywhere.
It's time to pump up the volume. Let's Turn Up Respect.
