Hope

Born 1940

Children who grew up in Australia in the 1970s, 80s and 90s will recognise one of Australia's most popular and prolific television presenters.

Benita Collings presented 401 episodes of Play School on ABC TV.

The Play School Flower Clock in the National Historical Collection. Photo: George Serras.

She read stories, taught children to tell the time and got creative with pipe cleaners and paddle-pop sticks.

Benita was always the energetic presenter on Play School.

She trained regularly at the gym so that she would have enough energy to jump like a kangaroo or run like an emu over several filming takes.

Play School presenters talk intimately to children and involve them in every activity. They encourage children to create, think and hope.

Play School has been running since 1966 and is watched by over 1 million children each day.

Benita says: "Children learn through play and this gives me hope".

The flower clock from Play School is on display in the Eternity Gallery.

Frida Dakiz in her boutique, 2006. Photo: Anita Beanie. Courtesy: Rebel Films.

Born 1977

In 2003, Frida won $4000 in a radio competition and used the money to start her own fashion retail business. She opened her first shop in Coburg – Melbourne's Muslim heartland. Her dream was to design and sew fashionable dresses for women that would meet the Muslim dress-code.

Frida says: 'My clothes keep the traditional guidelines – you can't show the figure of your body; you only show your hands, feet and face – but modernise it and use different colours. I don't want to make it easier for someone to wear it. I just want them to look more gorgeous. I want Frida clothes to be so high quality I can sell to the Sheik of Saudi Arabia.'

Not every shopper responded to her vision or vivacity. She experienced low sales and prejudice. Frida recalls: 'I had another lady that walked in the door [of the shop] with her mother and she said, "She's Muslim, are you sure you want to walk in?" I can't live any more normal than I live. I can not be any more Australian than I am. It's just getting harder to live your everyday life. You're in here for a reason, you're in here for the dress, my religion shouldn't be a problem.'

After being in business for six months Frida had to take on a second job just to pay the rent on her shop. She laments: 'It's dead, no one wants to buy anything. Retail sucks. I'm the little Aussie battler with a scarf.'

However, her fortunes improved when she changed to mainstream after-five wear and attended a bridal expo.

The ups and downs of Frida's adventures in the tough world of high-end fashion were the subject of a documentary Veiled Ambition produced by Rebel Films in 2006. A short excerpt from this film is shown in the Eternity Gallery and a study guide is available for teachers and students.

> View short excerpt from Veiled Ambition as shown in the Eternity Gallery (MPEG4 7.3mb)
Courtesy: Rebel Films and SBS.

> Read the transcript below

Joan Winch in her nurses uniform in 1952. Courtesy Joan Winch.

Born 1935

Joan Winch was born in Perth in 1935 and remembers being sent home from school in disgrace with childhood infections that were simple and easy to treat. She realised later that this was because her mother, an Aboriginal woman, had been taken from her mother when she was two and sent to a mission at Moore River, Western Australia, where she received no basic training in primary health care.

Later, while working as a community nurse, Joan was horrified to find that the same easily preventable ailments that had afflicted her as a child were still widespread in Aboriginal communities, and that people
still had no knowledge of how to prevent and treat them.

Joan Winch at work at Marr Mooditj in 1994. Courtesy Joan Winch.

She became determined to set up a primary health care training facility to educate people in basic health care, and was adamant that the people trained should be from Aboriginal communities, so that they could be trusted and therefore able to deliver effective preventative programs and treatment.

"I have always had a vision for our people," Joan later said, "a vision that one day our health status would be equal to, or better than that of non-indigenous Australians."

Joan became a trained nurse, achieving a triple certificate in nursing from the Western Australian Institute of Technology in 1978. She felt dissatisfied with the western medical system, however, which kept knowledge in the hands of a few experts, and focused on curing rather than preventing illness and disease. Joan's dissatisfaction, and her vision for better Aboriginal health, resulted in her founding a college named Marr Mooditj, meaning 'good hands' in the local Noongar language. The college opened in Perth in 1983 and trains community members in basic health care, drawing on both traditional and western medical models. In 1987 Joan Winch was awarded the World Health Organisation's Sasakawa Health Prize for her outstanding work in primary health care and preventative medicine.

Now into its third decade, Marr Mooditj College offers a Diploma in Enrolled Nursing and has trained over 750 Health and Community workers as well as 24 nurses. It continues to grow with stage 2 buildings (more classrooms, a computer room, a library and student support facilities) being constructed in 2010.

The statuette awarded to Joan by the World Health Organisation is on display in the Eternity Gallery.

Mary Hamm. Courtesy: Mary Hamm.

Born 1928

Mary was born in country Victoria on 22 July 1928. Her parents suffered during the Great Depression and left her at the age of 3 to be raised by her grandparents. Mary married Charles Hamm during the 1950s and they planned for a family. Perhaps because of her own childhood experiences, she hoped for a large family with many children and was particularly keen to have a daughter. However after giving birth to her son Barry, she was told she could have no other children. Mary and Charles decided to adopt Aboriginal children and Mary began writing letters to the government departments which eventually resulted in the adoption of 3 Aboriginal children.

The Eternity story focuses on Mary's hopes for a family and the hopes for her children who all grew up knowing they were Aboriginal and adopted. The objects are the baby clothes bought by Mary Hamm in preparation for the arrival of her adopted daughter Treahna.

Tommy Tomasi. Courtesy: Tommy Tomasi.

Born 1926

Italian-born Ferruccio (Tommy) Tomasi came to Australia with high hopes for his future. While he was working in Western Australia, Tommy saw an image of the snow on Mt Kosciuszko which reminded him of his homeland. He set off to Cooma to apply for work on the Snowy Mountains Scheme.

The Scheme offered Tommy the chance to fulfil his hopes for the future in a part of Australia that reminded him of home:

I enjoyed this work very much, finding it extremely interesting and really felt that I was contributing to the Snowy Scheme.

A model of the Snowy Mountains Scheme is on display in the Eternity Gallery.

> More on the National Museum's Snowy Scheme collection

Arthur Phillip, 1738-1814

In 1788 Captain Arthur Phillip arrived in Sydney Cove, Australia to establish a new colony. Some of his initial impressions of the place were:

The climate is a very fine one, and the country will, I make no doubt, when the woods are cleared away, be as healthy as any in the world this country will prove the most valuable acquisition Great Britain ever made.

This harbour is, in extent and security, very superior to any other that I have ever seen.

Phillip had many hopes for the new colony and designed buildings that could be enlarged as the population grew:

Public buildings ... [may] be enlarged ... in the future. The principal streets are placed so as to admit a free circulation of air, and are two hundred feet wide.

He noticed that the local Aboriginal people used clay to decorate their bodies. Phillip collected some of this clay and gave it to botanist Joseph Banks who took it to Josiah Wedgwood in London in 1789. Wedgwood had it fashioned into medallions to commemorate the new colony. The design is highly symbolic and features four figures which represent Hope, Art, Labour and Peace.

The 'Botany Bay Medal', as the medallion came to be known, was on display in the Eternity Gallery.

Ben Chifley, 1885-1951

Ben Chifley was elected as Prime Minister of Australia in 1945. He introduced a number of social welfare reforms and instigated much post-war reconstruction. He was crucial in the creation of a national airline (TAA), the Holden car, the Australian National University and the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Chifley was committed to full employment and his visionary immigration policy was the first stage in dismantling the White Australia Policy. Coining the phrase 'the light on the hill', Chifley had great hopes of bringing something better to the people, better standards of living, greater happiness...

Ben Chifley's pipe, which he was rarely without, was on display in the Eternity gallery.

> More on Ben Chifley

Betty Cuthbert, born 1939

All those months and months of training had proved their value in exactly 52 seconds. It was the fastest I'd ever run for the distance and was only a tenth of a second outside Sin Kim Dan's world record. In less than a minute everything I'd planned for, worked for and prayed for HAD come true.

Betty Cuthbert, 1966

Seventeen-year-old sprinter Betty Cuthbert won a remarkable haul of three gold medals at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games in the 100 metres, 200 metres and the 4 x 100 metres relay. She was hampered by injury at the 1960 Olympics but, encouraged by her coach June Ferguson, she prepared for the longer 400 metres at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

She built up her stamina on a running machine, then a rarity in Australia. The running machine, on display in Eternity, could be used to train in wet weather; it allowed her coach closer scrutiny of her style, improved her balance and endurance, and replicated the feeling of sheer speed. Her main rivals in the race were Australia's Judy Amoore and Great Britain's Ann Packer.

While visiting Eternity take the opportunity to record your own story of hope.

Nita Gilvear

Hope of recovering from polio and being known for something other than her disability (1930s-1940s)

Depression-era fancy dress competition, hoped to win new shoes (1930s)

Peter Wood

Hope of a better world (utopia) (1890s-1960s)

Tan Le

Hope for Australia's future and the hope of new immigrants (contemporary)

Frida Dakiz transcript of video:

Frida: My name is Frida. In Arabic it means 'sacrifice'. In Latin 'Frida' means 'unique'.
This is Sydney Road Coburg, Melbourne's Muslim heartland. Fish and chips, felafels - take your pick.
Interviewer: Two years ago Frida won $4000 in a radio competition. The prize money enabled her to open a fashion boutique for Islamic women and pursue her lifelong dream of creating her own empire.
Frida: I'm trying to find the thing that's going to make me rich - not so much rich, I would say successful. I want to have a say in the community. And at the end of the day, no matter what religion you are, money talks.
Frida to customer: There's your card.
Frida: When a Muslim woman goes shopping usually there are things she is looking for and that's mainly to make sure that it's modest - everything is like covering her butt and not like tight around the chest area.

Interviewer: Frida is getting worried. Her shop has now been open for six months and, despite her best intentions, Frida is rapidly sliding into debt.
Frida: It's dead at the moment. I don't know, no-one wants to spend any money.
It's been really slow for now coming on to three months. Retail sucks.
Frida to customers: Do you need a hand with anything?
Customer: No, we're right thanks, we're just having a look.
Frida: I'm a little Aussie battler with a scarf.
Interviewer: Frida has taken on a second job just to pay the rent.
Frida: You feel like going out to every single Muslim out there saying 'buy a dress, buy a dress, save me!' I'm going to need something to get me out of what I'm in.
Interviewer: Frida has come up with a radical idea to save the shop. She's going mainstream. Frida is now importing an exclusive range of American prom queen dresses.
Frida: This transition that I'm making is probably from one extreme to another, from modest clothing to really revealing clothing.
Frida to customer: It's really sexy; it's hot. You can take that off.
Frida: You're Australian, you're Greek you're Italian, you come into my shop. Don't worry about this. (refers to her head scarf) You're in here for a reason: you're in here for a dress. My religion shouldn't be a problem. I feel proud. I know I've got the best dresses in the strip now, 100 per cent.