Mar 5, 2019
Balund-a is a residential diversionary program for young indigenous offenders, located on a working rural property on the Clarence River, near Tabulam, in northern NSW. In addition to drug and alcohol recovery programs, Balund-a offers participants vocational training, numeracy and literacy courses, and a cultural reconnection program overseen by on site indigenous Elders.For several years now the Red Room Company has brought their Unlocked prison poetry program to Balund-a during NAIDOC week. In 2018 poet Lionel Fogarty and musician, Joe Geia, returned to facilitate the workshops. This episode of justicematters features the NAIDOC concert that formed the high point and culmination of the workshops.