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The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy
As we enter 2025, NAIDOC Week marks a powerful milestone: 50 years of honoring and elevating Indigenous voices, culture, and resilience. The 2025 theme, "The Next Generation: Strength, Vision & Legacy," celebrates not only the achievements of the past but the bright future ahead, empowered by the strength of our young leaders, the vision of our communities, and the legacy of our ancestors. The NAIDOC journey began as a movement for recognition and rights, sparked by Indigenous communities who saw a future built on justice and equality. Over the decades, it has grown into a powerful national celebration, a testament to the enduring strength of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. As we commemorate this 50-year legacy, we also look forward, honouring the next generation who will carry the torch, shaping the future with courage, insight, and deep respect for our roots. Guided by the wisdom of our Elders and the groundwork laid by our forebears, each NAIDOC Week reinforces our vision for an Australia where Indigenous voices are not only heard but lead the way. This year, the National NAIDOC Committee takes an important step toward independence, embracing self-determination as a model for the next generation. 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. As we celebrate this milestone, we look toward the next 50 years with excitement and confidence, while everyday ensuring that NAIDOC remains a movement grounded in community-led vision and integrity. From this solid foundation, the next generation will rise—grounded in the strength of our Elders, history, inspired by a shared vision, and committed to building a legacy of unity, respect, and self-determination for all. This NAIDOC Week, we celebrate not just a milestone but a movement that endures, grows, and evolves—driven by the unwavering strength of our communities, the shared vision of our people, and the enduring legacy we pass on to those who will shape our future. Together, we walk forward, honoring where we've come from and looking boldly to the next generation who will carry NAIDOC and their communities into the future. |
National NAIDOC Week
National NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia in the first week of July each year (Sunday to Sunday), to celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC Week is an opportunity for all Australians to learn about First Nations cultures and histories and participate in celebrations of the oldest, continuous living cultures on earth. You can support and get to know your local Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander communities through activities and events held across the country.
We have a proud history of getting up, standing up, and showing up.From the frontier wars and our earliest resistance fighters to our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities fighting for change today—we continue to show up.Now is our time. We cannot afford to lose momentum for change.
We all must continue to Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! for systemic change and keep rallying around our mob, our Elders, our communities.
Whether it’s seeking proper environmental, cultural and heritage protections, Constitutional change, a comprehensive process of truth-telling, working towards treaties, or calling out racism—we must do it together.
It must be a genuine commitment by all of us to Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! and support and secure institutional, structural, collaborative, and cooperative reforms.
It’s also time to celebrate the many who have driven and led change in our communities over generations—they have been the heroes and champions of change, of equal rights and even basic human rights. We need to move beyond just acknowledgement, good intentions, empty words and promises, and hollow commitments. Enough is enough.
The relationship between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non‑Indigenous Australians needs to be based on justice, equity, and the proper recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ rights.
Get Up! Stand Up! Show Up! with us to amplify our voices and narrow the gap between aspiration and reality, good intent and outcome.