The Kinship Festival is on at Knox Park, Murwillumbah on Saturday, May 27, the first Day of Reconciliation Week. | Lismore City News

The Kinship Festival – a major North Coast cultural festival led by First Nations people – will be held in Knox Park, Murwillumbah on Saturday, May 27, the first Day of Reconciliation Week.

The Kinship Festival is designed and directed by members of the Aboriginal community, with the aim of connecting all families with a sense of belonging to country, community, and culture.

The Festival is now in its eight year and is going from strength to strength with the number of people attending each year increasing. In 2022 over 4,000 people enjoyed the cultural dancing, music, art, and the free lunch for all. In recognition of its success, the Tweed Shire Council awarded the Kinship Festival the Event of the Year in its Australia day awards. This honour was bestowed in recognition of the significant contribution the Festival makes to enhancing community wellbeing and supporting Aboriginal culture to thrive.

Despite the festival’s growing popularity, the Committee has strived to maintain the festival as a free event so that low-income families have an opportunity to connect and enjoy the festivities in a culturally safe environment. A core value of the festival is equality and access for all members of the community. Food is such an integral part of any culture and feeding people is a sign of welcome and kinship free bush tucker BBQ and vegetarian lunch is served from 11am-1pm so that everyone, regardless of their financial status can enjoy the event.

Kinships festival spokesperson, Lara Lei invites the community down to the Knox Park festivities. The festival commences at 10am with a Welcome to Country and Smoking Ceremony, followed by a Corroboree. Ten different dance groups from across the Bundjalung nation and beyond will be celebrating kinship connections through dance, storylines, a large-scale interactive community sand art installation, language workshops, weaving, children’s nature crafts and traditional games, live music, youth space along with the always popular Aboriginal Artisan Market.

“The Kinship Festival celebrates the creativity of First Nations people and offers the broader community a day to share in the richness of our culture and increase understanding of the talents of First Nations people,” said Teleahsia Togo , Kinship Festival volunteer.

The corrobboree starts with the Kids Caring for Country, Biren, Goodjingburra dance groups, followed by the Nini Nahri-Gali, Bundjalung Yowarld, Garimaa Ngahri and Merrigingi dance groups along with the Karem Bau Torres Strait Islander dancers, based on the Gold Coast and the Pasifika Breeze South Sea Islands dancers from the Tweed.

“This festival has been held annually for eight years, with a goal of creating connections – stronger connections and respect of culture and knowledge, and also connections between people. It’s a day of happiness.” Teleahsia said.

Another popular event is the Elders Sharing Wisdom Workshop, where elders share their values, stories, and wisdom with children, and this year there will also be language workshops for adults and children.

Deidre Currie said First Nations artists welcome the festival, because they can share their art to the many attendees and explain their creations and the links to culture.

“We want hope every single person who comes to Kinship to leave with a stronger sense of place, community, culture and belonging,” Deidre said.

“The last few years with floods, fires and Covid, have been challenging so it’s more important than ever that people have a strong feeling of belonging and community. The organisers of this festival want to heighten that for everyone attends. We want everyone to share the vibrancy of our culture and feel that they belong to country and community in a meaningful way.”

The theme of this year’s festival is Jarjumah Nybani (children and family) ‘children are our tomorrow people’, it was chosen by Uncle Magpie Currie, a prolific Bundjalung artist and songman who has been a long time Kinship Festival advisor and contributor. Magpie chose the theme shortly before passing away peacefully last month and has been the designer of the annual sand art installation every year.

His design has been completed by his sister and fellow artist Ramona ‘Waugan’ Cavanagh who said “the Eagle represents my brother, Uncle Magpie, an elder within our community who has now returned home. He now sits with our old people and we recognize him at this time this place in the form of the wedge tail eagle”

The day will end at the sand art installation site with a community dance led by the Merrigingi Dancers in honour of Uncle Magpie – whose gifts live on through everything he shared with community.

Community service providers have interactive activity spaces on the day – giving families an opportunity to connect with organisations and groups that can benefit them.

The Kinship Festival is proudly led and directed by First Nations people and is a sponsored event of Tweed Shire Council, supported by Murwillumbah Community Centre, YWCA Communities for Children, Ingrained Foundation, Pottsville Beach Neighbourhood Centre, Social Futures, Headspace, Heart of Love Foundation, Lindisfarne Anglican College, GARDN and Gangallah Church, The Salvation Army and many more.

All activities are free, including lunch and transport can be arranged for elders and young people. For more information go to:

or contact Murwillumbah Community Centre 02 6672 3003 [email protected]