This year, NAIDOC Week marks the powerful milestone of 50 years honouring and elevating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices, culture and resilience. The 2025 theme, “The Next Generation: Strength, Vision and Legacy”, celebrates not only the achievements of the past, but the bright future ahead, empowered by the strength of young leaders, the vision of our communities and the legacy of our ancestors.  

At Wentworth Healthcare, we encourage our staff and stakeholders to explore local opportunities to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, recognise the strength and leadership of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and to develop our own understanding and recognition of the history and culture of this land.  

This sentiment is echoed in our new Stretch Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), our third RAP, which has just been endorsed by Reconciliation Australia. Organisations who undertake a Stretch RAP need to have established strong approaches to advancing reconciliation internally and be willing to work with others in their sphere of influence externally to do the same. We are proud to have reached this next stage of our reconciliation journey and look forward to formally launching our new RAP later this year.   

As they do every year, many of our staff are participating in reconciliation activities across the region. On Friday 27 June, staff attended the Annual NAIDOC Cup event held at Hunter Sports Fields in Emu Plains. This sporting and cultural carnival is one that we look forward to every year, with over 1,000 local primary school children attending to play sports such as oz tag and netball, as well as taking part in cultural activities,arts, crafts and traditional dancing.  

This Friday, we will be attending the Annual NAIDOC week event at Jamison Park which is the largest NAIDOC gathering in NSW with over 10,000 people expected to attend. It’s a wonderful opportunity to network, connect and celebrate culture together. Our staff will be at our Wentworth Healthcare stall, and we’d love for you to stop by, say hello, and learn more about the work we do.  

We hope you take the time to participate in some of the wonderful NAIDOC activities happening around the region this week and take the opportunity to learn something new and share in celebrating one of the oldest living cultures on earth.