The target is a modest $22,000 and the committee hopes to raise the sum by Friday 10 April to ensure the festival, which honours local resident and poet Judith Wright, will continue.

Started in 2005 the 2 Fires Festival works to highlight Judith Wright’s two passions, activism and art and the 2015 Festival promises another packed program with a particular focus on Aboriginal rights and culture.

A very special part of this year’s Festival will be the unveiling of the Dhurga Rock in Ryrie Park on Saturday morning.

The Dhurga Rock is inscribed with words acknowledging the Aboriginal people who owned and cared for the land that is now the Braidwood district for countless millennia before the arrival of Europeans. A symbol of reconciliation, the Rock is an expression of regret for the dispossession and dislocation of the district’s Aboriginal people.

Local school children will work with Aboriginal Elder Noel Butler and rock carver, Ian Marr to develop designs for the rock.

The opening will be followed by the inaugural Judith Wright Address to be given by Linda Burney, NSW Deputy Opposition Leader and Wiradjuri woman.

Other planned events (not all confirmed) include a talk by Mark McKenna, University of Sydney History Professor and author of “Looking for Blackfella’s Point”, the screening of a film of the Jimmy Little Opera House memorial concert, Aboriginal dancing and storytelling and a tree planting ceremony in the Judith Wright Community garden on the Bombay Road.

 In a significant act of reconciliation Noel Butler has asked that the trees be dedicated to Braidwood’s first European settlers.

The 2 Fires Festival Committee urges all Braidwood residents to go to startsomegood.com and give generously to continue the Festival and maintain the wonderful legacy of Judith Wright’s life work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hNGX-Qi8XU