Award+Winners+Factfile

Oodgeroo Noonuccal

**Name:** Oodgeroo Noonuccal formally known as Kath Walker.

**Name change:** She changed her name back to Oodgeroo Noonuccal in 1988 as a sign of protest to the way her people were treated. **Born:** In 1920.

**From:** Stradbroke Island (the island is called Minjerriba by the Aboriginal people).

**Mob:** The Noonuccal people of the Yuggera group.

**Job:** she is best known for her poetry by has also been an actress, writer, teacher, activist, and a campaigner for Aboriginal rights. She has involved with many Aboriginal rights groups.

**Nominated for:** Her poetry and her work as an Aboriginal rights activist.

**Life:** Oodgeroo has a sense of injustice from her early childhood due to her Dreaming Totem the carpet snake (Kabul) that she shared with her father. She left school when she was 13 and became a domestic servant until she was 19.

She left that job to volunteer at The Australian Womens Army Service.

She was in her 40's to become the first published Aboriginal women with a collection of verse called We are Going which sold out in three days. She had been writing poems beforehand but had never submitted anything. She was encouraged to begin publishing her work by a friend and well known writer. She told her "Girl, thse are not your poems. They belong to the people. You are just the tool that writes them down." She also wrote a number of childrens books including the rainbow serpent with her son Kabul in 1988. She is an activist in Aboriginal rights. She is involved in Aboriginal rights organisations including the National Tribe Council, the Aboriginal Arts Board and the Aboriginal Housing Commitee.

**Inspriation:** She was inspired by her bush and sea upbrining and they are the basis of her writing style. She was influence by her father who taught her to be proud of who she is and her Aboriginality.

**Campaigining for Aboriginal rights:** Before Aboriginal rights she fought for equality and gave talks all around the country. Throughout the 60's she was campaiging for equality and the right for Aboriginals to vote. She travelled around the world, explaining to others how Aboriginals were made to live and continued to fight for her people.