Kinchela boys home survivors visit rnsh For Uncle Willy Nixon #24 Jnr, sharing his harrowing childhood in Kinchela Boys Home - after being stolen from his family - is a way for him to heal from the past, and to teach future generations of the trauma suffered by Aboriginal families and communities. While walking home one day in a small country town near Walgett, he and his brothers were bundled up in the back of a police paddy wagon and taken by train to Sydney, then Kempsey, where they lived for the next 10 years at the Kinchela Boys Home. The five-year-old was not able to see his mum, nor did she know where her children had been taken. No birthdays or Christmases were celebrated and corporal punishment was daily. Uncle Willy, fellow Stolen Generations Survivors Uncle Robert Young #24 Snr and Uncle Terence Grimes #15, Elders and descendants visited Royal North Shore Hospital recently to share their stories and displayed remarkable courage in the hope they can heal from the past, and change the future. “A lot of us fellas don’t like to share our stories, even with our own families because we don’t want them to suffer and have trauma,” Uncle Willy said. Kinchela Boys Home was a ‘home’ run by the NSW Government for almost 50 years from 1924 – 1970 to house Aboriginal boys forcibly removed from their families, communities and countries. Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation (KBHAC) is a not-for-profit Aboriginal community controlled organisation established to help restore and reconstruct the identity, dignity and integrity of Aboriginal men, like Uncle Willy, and to address the intergenerational trauma that adversely impacts on the lives of the men’s families and descendants. For many Aboriginal families and descendants of the Stolen Generations, visiting a hospital or health service is traumatic and can be a reminder of the past. Many fear government services, institutions and being asked deeply private information. To find out more about Kinchela Boys’ Home and hear from Survivors, visit https:// kinchelaboyshome.org.au/ Uncle Willy Nixon #24 Jnr (third from right) and members of the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation (KBHAC)Aboriginal Corporation visited RNSH and provided a powerful truth telling session
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NSLHDNEWS | ISSUE 19| 4 OCTOBER 2024 NSLHD NEWS | ISSUE 16 | 28 AUGUST 2026
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