Rights and freedoms

This workshop examines and celebrates the incredible accounts of resistance and triumph in the face of impossible challenges.

Students use artefacts, objects, oral histories and content to investigate Aboriginal Peoples’ struggle for equal rights and recognition. Working in groups, they will collate evidence that builds a collective concept of the fight for basic human rights and equality.

Throughout the program, key WA personalities will be discussed, alongside the use of specific techniques to assist in navigating Australia’s difficult past and present.

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Student experience

Students will:

• Explore the themes of Rights and Freedoms through the Ngalang Koort Boodja Wirn gallery  
• Use inquiry-based learning to  gather evidence
• Investigate how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia have fought for rights and freedoms
• Explore human rights—what they are, why we have them and how they can be challenged
• Develop tools to discuss complex and difficult topics with empathy

Skills development

This program links to the following strands of the Western Australian Curriculum:

Year 10

History

• The background to the struggle of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples for rights and freedoms before 1965, including the 1938 Day of Mourning and the Stolen Generations (ACDSEH104)
• Methods used by civil rights activists to achieve change for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and the role of ONE individual or group in the struggle (ACDSEH134)

Year 10

Knowledge and Understanding

• The origins and significance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including Australia's involvement in the development of the declaration (ACDSEH023)
• The background to the struggle of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples for rights and freedoms before 1965, including the 1938 Day of Mourning and the Stolen Generations (ACDSEH104)
• The US civil rights movement and its influence on Australia (ACDSEH105)
• The significance of one of the following for the civil rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples: 1962 right to vote federally; 1967 Referendum; reconciliation; Mabo decision; Bringing Them Home Report (the Stolen Generations), the Apology (ACDSEH106)
• Methods used by civil rights activists to achieve change for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and the role of ONE individual or group in the struggle (ACDSEH134)
• The international agreements Australia has ratified and examples of how they shape government policies and laws (e.g. the protection of World Heritage areas, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) (ACHCK093)

Year 11

History ATAR

Unit 2 – Movements for change in the 20th century

Elective: Recognition and rights of Indigenous Peoples

Year 12

History ATAR

Unit 3 – Modern nations in the 20th century

Elective: Australia 1918-1955

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