By Rev. Andy Fleming, Associate Chaplain

It’s that time of year again, the Dirrum Dirrum Festival is coming up on Saturday 17 August and this year’s festival promises to be the best one yet. Today we have the priviledge of introducing two of our speakers for this year’s festival: Grace Tame and Sushi Das.

The name of the festival, Dirrum Dirrum, comes from the sound of red in the Ngunnawal language: the colour of blood and earth. Annually, the Dirrum Dirrum festival is held on Ngunnawal land and each year we bring in a diverse and powerful group of speakers to address our audience in a conference aimed at change-making in our community and beyond. Dirrum Dirrum is a way of seeing ourselves and others bound in respectful relationships, standing in a wide circle of compassionate engagement.

The theme for this year’s festival is Makarrata: The coming together after a struggle. The word Makarrata is borrowed from the Yonglu language from East Arhnem land. With permission of the East Arnhem Land Council, we’ve invited a group of speakers and performers who will share what Makarrata means to them from their own stories and perspectives.

There are a variety of speakers speaking to the Makarrata theme. Two of them being Grace Tame and Sushi Das.

Grace Tame was named the 2021 Australian of the Year. Grace is a survivor of child sexual abuse, author, columnist, campaigner, and advocate for fellow survivors. She is the Founder of The Grace Tame Foundation (GTF), a not-for-profit organisation which creates and funds initiatives to prevent, disrupt and respond to child sexual abuse. In 2022 she released her number one best-selling memoir, The Ninth Life of a Diamond Miner, which was shortlisted for three Australia Book Industry Awards. She now resides in her hometown of Hobart and regularly competes in ultramarathons around the country, including her win at the Great Ocean Road Ultra as the first women and 6th overall. She is a regular columnist for titles including The Monthly and the Saturday Paper. For her contribution to legal reforms that allow child sexual abuse survivors to tell their own stories publicly, Grace was named the 2021 Australian of the Year.

Sushi Das is an award-winning journalist and associate director of RMIT fact-lab. The theme Makarrata: the coming together after a struggle has a direct link to the recent Voice to Parliament Referendum and we are so pleased to have Sushi Das speak to us about the role of misinformation and disinformation in the referendum.

RMIT fact lab was heavily involved with the verification of claims in the Voice to Parliament referendum, researching and publishing articles debunking claims made about the nature of the referendum. Misinformation and disinformation play a role in every one of our lives and we're sure everyone has seen false information on the news or in social media posts. The increasingly important role of social media in all our lives has only accelerated the spread of false information which is why it is so important for us all to be aware and learn how to spot it in our everyday lives. Sushi will be presenting virtually.

We are so excited to have both Grace and Sushi at this year’s Dirrum Festival and we can’t wait to see you there on Saturday 17 August at 4 pm.

Don’t forget to book your tickets! Tickets for students are free so make sure to get in quick.