Donna Meehan

Born

1954 Coonamble, New South Wales

Removed

1960 Newcastle, New South Wales

Personal Statement

 I was honoured to be asked to share my story. I tell it to honour my two mums, and to assist Australians to better understand the effect of past Government policies. One day in history, a few politicians collectively vetoed a bill, but the historical ramifications included decades of spiritual and psychological manifestations, by the disempowering consequences of which to this day has a significant impact upon the Dreaming, self worth, identity, sense of belonging, and the transmission of culture. With each passing year the boomerang question is ‘is it possible that the politicians were truly ignorant or was it a very deliberate elaborate master plan to dismantle the Aboriginal race?’ My grandfather, my birth mother and my self came to the point of believing that suicide would be the only way out. Three generations had the same thought that this was the only solution. How does one cope with always being one of the minority in your own country? Having faced my fear by choosing to live, and twenty years of learning my history, I am better equipped to face my challenges. When I stood in thick fog on top of one of the highest mountains in Calgary Canada, I had tears rolling down my cheeks, talking to myself saying ‘ fancy me, that little girl from the bush in Australia, standing here on a snow capped mountain half way round the world, ’who would have believed it?’ As i have stood in sacred places I have often wished to have had my brothers and sisters standing with me. Their life was very different to mine. This is an interview about what happened the day I was taken away and you can read how my story ends in my autobiography ‘It is no secret’.