If you’ve been keeping up to date on the latest news from 30Acres HQ, you’ll know that we’ve been working towards a B Corp Certification; something that’s very close to all of our hearts. Part of our certification assessment framework looks at how our company engages with and impacts on the communities around us, from diversity in the workplace to charitable giving, and everything in between. As such, we’ve started hosting regular Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) trainings for our team.
Our first D&I day covered Implicit Bias in the workplace (read more about that here). For our second D&I day, we took to the great outdoors to participate in an Aboriginal tour at Cape Byron with local Arakwal Bundjalung woman, Delta Kay. Delta is well known and respected as an Arakwal elder in the Byron Shire. Her ancestors have lived in the area surrounding Byron for thousands of years, with Arakwal customs, knowledge, ceremonies and stories passed down to her for safe keeping.
After our tour with Delta, I turned to some of our team to hear their thoughts on the day and what their key takeaways were.
Margreet Wiegers - Marketing Team Lead
“It was a great experience to look at a place you know so well from a different perspective - to hear from Delta how her people lived around Walgun (Cape Byron), and why this was such a special and sacred place to them.
The history of the indigenous people in our area is such an important story to be told, and powerful to hear from Delta herself: a story of resilience, but also of trauma, unjustness and ongoing battles, which needs to be heard and acknowledged before you can think about the future. A cultural centre at the Lighthouse, which the local Arakwal Bundjalung people are working towards establishing, would be a great way for this story to continue to be told, as part of Australia's healing process to move forward together.”
Dave Miller - Paid Media Specialist
“Delta's tour around Cape Byron was a very interesting way to find out indigenous history of the area, pointing out sacred locations, practices, bush foods and traditions. It was such a great insightful experience that I’d recommend to locals as well as those visiting Byron Bay. After our day came to an end, I sat down with my kids and chatted about some key learnings from Delta’s talk, as it's important to keep these stories alive and spread awareness of the history of indigenous people in our area.
Marie Leclercq - Development Producer
“It was such an interesting day with Delta learning about so many aspects of indigenous culture and more specifically, the Arakwal people of Bundjalung. Delta was so engaging to listen to and really sparked my interest to research further. Coming from France, I feel there is so much to learn about Australia’s diverse past and this information isn’t readily available to learn about anywhere locally. This is why Delta’s tours are so great and I would encourage everyone to partake in one to broaden your knowledge and appreciation of this sacred land we live on.
Additionally, from a work perspective, it’s great to see that more brands are acknowledging the traditional custodians of Australia on their websites, however there is still a long way to go and more diversity needs to be included in website content.”
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If you’re interested in partaking in a tour yourself with Delta, you can book here directly through her website. As you can see, we can recommend - support your local indigenous businesses while gaining valuable knowledge about our history, culture and environment.
We also encourage you to check out our recent blog posts where we delve into our why and how behind becoming B Corp certified.
