NAIDOC Week 2025
NAIDOC Week 2025 celebrates the bright future ahead, empowered by the strength of our young leaders, the vision of our communities, and the legacy of our ancestors. This year marks 50 years of NAIDOC Week. With every story shared, every act of resilience remembered, and every cultural practice celebrated, we honour a legacy that reaches far into the past and extends into the future.
To recognise the significance of this year’s theme ‘The Next Generation” Strength, Vision, & Legacy’, Synapse spoke to our incredible team about the importance of culture and what the week means to them.
Shehana – First Nations Engagement Officer / Support Coordinator
What does this year’s NAIDOC Week theme, “The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy” mean to you?
“NAIDOC Week for me is a celebration of truth telling and black excellence. This year’s Theme reflects the importance to continue to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, celebrating achievements while continuing to address inequities and areas around support.”
What’s important about our work that you think respects this?
“Our Work with Synapse Supports capacity building in aspects of ours First Nations people, building on our knowledges to better support better independence. Within my role as a First Nations Engagement Officer and NDIS Support its imperative that we support mob with the recourse and tools for self-determination.”
Brooke – First Nations Engagement Officer
What does this year’s NAIDOC Week theme, “The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy” mean to you?
We are honorary proof that we are still here, that we will continue to be here, that we honour all of that that has been pathed before us and that we will continue to pave that path for those that will continue to be here after us.
What’s important about our work that you think respects this?
In walking and working in honour of who was before us and who will come after us Synapse has been delivering groundbreaking work. They have given voices to those that have fallen in the cracks, that are often forgotten about and misunderstood. Working with mob that have been through trauma, delivering services that are mob led that aims to educate, advocating and allowing for mob to become more self-determining in the disability and brain injury space.
Jarick – Men’s Behaviour Change Facilitator
What does this year’s NAIDOC Week theme, “The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy” mean to you?
“Strength, vision, and legacy means having the courage to carry on with your vision of personal and inner peace. Being told you could never do something and having the strength to defy the critics and nay sayers. Building the vision with the ones who have helped and encouraged you, the ones that see YOU! But also being able to share the knowledge that you’ve learnt the hard way for the generations to come. We can only lead to a legacy we once knew as a people,”
What’s important about our work that you think respects this?
“What’s important about the men’s behavioural change program at Synapse that respects this is we’re giving men hope for change and improvement. Bringing forth the knowledge they hold from their own journeys. Empowering them to stand up and acknowledge their wrong doings. Getting them to see the light in the darkness and helping them move towards their own happiness. This will hopefully build the role models for the next generation.”