Indigenous Japanese (Ainu) and Indigenous Australian Cultural Exchange Australian Tour 2011

Indigenous Japanese (Ainu) and Indigenous Australian
Cultural Exchange Australian Tour 2011
(Melbourne and Tasmania)

　Tour description (aim, objectives, funding body, etc.)

A. Aim
The aim of the Project is to facilitate interaction between Indigenous Japanese (Ainu) and Indigenous Australian people through a cross-cultural tour to Australia by the Ainu living in Greater Tokyo in February/March 2011.

B. Funding Body and Recipient
The Tour is partly funded by the grants from the Australian and Japan Foundation, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and Trade, Australia. The grant recipient is the Mersey Leven Aboriginal Corporation (now known as Six Rivers Aboriginal Corporation) in Tasmania.

C. Objectives

(1) Introduce the Ainu participants to two major cities in Australia to experience the culture and history and to share with Australian Aborigines the contemporary situation of the Ainu people;

(2) To provide the Ainu with an opportunity to learn from Indigenous experiences in Tasmania and Victoria;

(3) To provide the Ainu an opportunity to study the important aspects of Australian indigenous policy as well as civil society’s support for indigenous issues in order to gain a comparative perspective and utilize it in their participation in the dialogue with the government, which has just begun;

(4) To provide the Ainu with an opportunity to learn how cultural heritage sites are protected and maintained;

(5) To promote mutual understanding between the Japanese Ainu and the Australian Aboriginals for the purpose of international indigenous solidarity; and

(6) To promote an understanding of the Australian Aboriginals through post-tour presentations and publication of a report in Japan.

Air travel for this 2011 Tour to Australia from Japan has been made possible with funds granted by the Australia-Japan Foundation, which is part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to the Mersey Leven Aboriginal Corporation, now known as the Six Rivers Aboriginal Corporation, based in Devonport, Tasmania.

The Tour is under the aegis of the General-Consulate of Japan in Melbourne.

The Melbourne component of the Tour has been fully supported by the Association of New Elderly Inc. in Melbourne.