GG Sam hangs out with some lively jarjums

It seems to be the season for offcial visits to the Northern Rivers with Her Excellency, the Honourable Governor General, Sam Mostyn AC making an appearance last week, following only two weeks after the Governor of NSW, Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC.

Her Excellency dropped in to the Jarjum Centre, a preschool at Goonellabah, to hear about the great work being done in early intervention and to meet some of the children for story time.

“You can call me GG Sam,” she said to the small class of 4-5 year olds.

“Or if it’s easier, just Sam.”

The governor-general was met with some very enthusiastic readers, as she started to read from Joy Murphy’s ‘Welcome to Country’.

Little Liliana, or Lala as she told the governorgeneral to call her, wanted to point out the pictures and show how well she could count.

Her enthusiasm was greeted with laughter from the surrounding adults, as well as the governor-general herself.

The governor-general was taken on a tour of the Jarjum Centre, which has been running since the early 1980s. occupational therapy and hearing so the children are all on the same level

It provides programs for preschool children in speech therapy, by the time they reach primary school.

The centre also provides playgroups and cultural learning through language, stories and visits by elders.

Co-founder, Aunty Sandra Bolt said the school started when she was working for YACS (Youth and Community Services) which today is known as DOCS, and they did a survey to fnd out how many Aboriginal children were enrolled in preschool across the Northern Rivers.

“We found out there were only three and two of those children were mine,” she said.

So, with co-founder Aunty Faye Smith, they established the Jarjum Centre, which now has an enrolment of around 74 children.

The governor-general then headed to Southern Cross University to see the work it provided during the 2022 foods.

This was followed by a visit to CONVERGE, a disaster recovery initiative to bring new life and energy to Lismore’s CBD through the creative industry and an inspection of the old municipal building, the Lismore library and the waste facility and water treatment plant.

The visit was rounded off with a civic reception at Invercauld House in Goonellabah.