Fiji Trip An Epiphany For Donna

Participants, Donna Crawford (middle back), Kelli Orrell (middle front), Amanda Edmonds (second from right) and Geoff Smith (far right) with group leader Ian Hunter (right back) and the staff of Nazareth Retreat Centre, Suva.

A journey to Fiji as part of a cross cultural-immersion program has turned out to be an epiphany for Toowoomba teacher Donna Crawford. As a proud local Indigenous woman, Donna realised she was in for a life-changing experience as soon as she got off the plane in Suva.

"To walk through the airport and be surrounded by local Indigenous people involved in all sorts of professions was a fantastic visual experience for me," she said. "I thought about the young Indigenous people in our community and how empowering it would be for them to go there and experience what I did."

Donna, 30, teaches at the Youth and Community Learning Centre in Toowoomba. Her trip was part of Catholic Mission's GIG (Getting Involved Globally) initiative. Catholic Mission is an international organisation and the global mission aid agency of the Catholic Church.

GIG 2004 participants,
Amanda (L) and Donna (R)
with Fijian locals.

Donna and four other Queensland teachers, including Toowoomba's Ian Hunter - senior education officer in the Catholic Education Office - experienced the 'real Fiji', away from commercial tourist areas, visiting families in rural villages. The group visited schools, hospitals, training colleges and an Australian family working as lay missionaries.

The GIG initiative challenges people to see, feel and act in new ways and Donna has certainly taken up the challenge. As an Indigenous person she was given special access to the cultural rituals of Indigenous Fijians. "I feel extremely privileged," Donna said. "There was so much openness in terms of their traditional customs, protocols, ceremonies and bush medicine," she said. "They were wanting to share their knowledge and I was also able to tell them about Indigenous Australians."

Donna is already planning on returning to Fiji to spend Christmas with some of her host families and is interested in pursuing further missionary experiences.