St Mary’s Mooroopna | Dreaming Garden opening

The school received a grant as part of the Philomena Billington Scholarship for Social Justice through the Arts.

The focus of the grant was to create art, shape the community and drive change.

Through this grant, the school created an Indigenous garden.

The children learnt about the Yorta Yorta dreamtime story Ina Yillian about how the Murray River was made.

Through art lessons with Sharon Wilson, the whole school learned about the dream story, and they created five canvas prints to retell the story.

These images were used in the garden as storyboards that tell the story as you walk along the pathway.

The children from Prep to Year 6 helped to create a Rainbow Serpent out of river rocks to wind its way through the garden.

All the children decorated a rock that was placed in the shape of Gane, the snake.

Local Indigenous artist Tori Day designed garden screens that also depict the dreaming story.

Children also took part in learning about which plants to include in the garden with workers from Parks Victoria.