Video Transcription
Marlee and Keely Silva: young Aboriginal women, entrepreneurs and role models
When you see someone that you can relate to, that looks like you or sounds like you, or comes from the same mob as you, you suddenly have this little lock opened in your heart, and you know that you can achieve that as well.
[On-screen title] Marlee and Keely Silva on identity and pride
So I’ll say, “Yaama, Marlee ngaya,” which is, in my language, “hello, my name is Marlee.” I am a 23, nearly 24-year-old Gamilaroi and Dunghutti woman. Myself and my sister Keely co-founded Tiddas 4 Tiddas.
Hi, my name is Keeley Silva, I’m 22 years old, and I’m a proud Gamilaroi and Dunghutti woman. Tiddas 4 Tiddas is a social media-based movement that was started in November of 2018. An Instagram and Facebook profile where we share stories and try and empower Indigenous females. So ‘tidda’ actually means ‘sister,’ so in English translation, it’s actually ‘sisters for sisters.’
I think if I’d had Tiddas 4 Tiddas in my pocket as a 15-year-old, I would have felt a lot less alone than what I did. I started high school as a huge lover of school and finished it absolutely hating it, wishing I could get out of there. I absolutely adored school, so I was friends with everyone. I made sure I made an effort to be friends with everyone.
I got picked up from school one day by my dad, and the next day, because kids had seen me get picked up by him, they asked me who he was. And then one young person actually turned around and asked me the question, “Why is your dad black?” Never in my life had I heard someone be called a color.
There was an incident at school in PE when we were learning about Indigenous health. They were saying, “Everyone, the Aboriginal people around here, you know, they get things for free,” and I had just got a scholarship. Yeah, I felt super alone because I was just like, “Why me?” or like, “What’s wrong with me?” Oh, I’m gonna get upset now. I was trying to figure out why I felt so different and why my Aboriginality set me apart from a lot of the people in my classes.
So I had to make a decision about how I would represent my culture, and I could either go through school based on how I look, or I could be really loud and proud in my culture and represent it that way. I turned the discomfort into pride straightaway. Yeah, it was a conscious decision for me to now say, “Yes, I am proud.” I studied hard to get where I am, and it’s where I’m meant to be. I enjoy it so much, and I think my success is, you know, an example of that.
That inbuilt resilience, that’s as a result of how long we’ve been around. We are the longest-living culture in the whole entire world. All the amazing things our ancestors have done, all the things we’ve been through and that we continue to push through. We’re a culture that is built on storytelling, and we’re continuing that tradition through this now very modern kind of platform.
