A special meeting has brought together an American, an Australian, three Aborigines and two Polish-Australians.
Days before the 2013 Kosciuszko Festival, Dream Lights, Kosciuszko Heritage has organised a unique meeting with the American pianist Roy Eaton (the special guest of this year’s festival), three members of the Ngarigo Aboriginal community – Aunty Rae, her son Matthew and her grandson Evan – and several representatives of Kosciuszko Heritage: Ernestyna Skujat-Kozek, Andrzej Kozek, and Felix Molski.
The meeting helped to deepen multicultural ties and foster dialogue between different communities.
Roy Eaton has described the experience in an article published in the Polish-Australian online newspaper, Puls Polonii, reprinted below.
Left to right: Ernestyna, Aunty Rae and Roy Eaton 
Aunty Rae and Roy Eaton 
A unique multicultural meeting
Picture this: an 80 year old Aboriginal female tribal leader (Auntie Rae), her son Matthew, her 20ish grandson Evan, a retired university professor Andrzej and his journalist wife Ernestyna, a world traveling Australian-Polish retired High School teacher Felix, and me.
Before retiring to a sumptuous dinner, in a Korean restaurant in the neighborhood [Camperdown], we all sat down together in Matthew’s recently constructed government-subsidized apartment and explored questions of Black and White (American and Australian versions), good and evil (universal human questions), then, now, and in the future.
And we came close to an answer to these universal human challenges. Our conclusion? Regardless of color, nationality or ethnicity, humankind is universally unpredictable, yet universally potentially instruments of lovingkindness. IF we are free to, and allow others to be free to explore and discover the intrinsic goodness that all of us are at the core of our Being.
Only when this natural process is frustrated by greed, or envy, or hate, or selfishness do we encounter pain in the life process. Simple to declare, difficult to achieve. But great leaders can make a difference. Kosciuszko in America. Strzelecki in Australia. Both Polish. Both visionary in their determination to abolish racial discrimination in their time (18th and 19th centuries). A vision still in process.
We look forward to celebrating this vision with our Aboriginal brothers and Polish benefactors at the K’Ozzie Fest next weekend.
Love
Roy