Cassie the cultural ‘rock star’ at Briagolong for Love Our Lakes

Cassie Leatham is a Gippsland legend when it comes to sharing local Aboriginal culture and the kids of Briagolong Primary School know it as well.

We rocked up early to the school to run our last ever Love Our Lakes Enviro-Stories workshop and found Cassie surrounded by a bunch of students who were very excited to see her. The younger students were even upset that she wasn’t going to be talking to their class, such was her ‘rock star’ following with the kids.

After introducing the grade 5/6 class to the job ahead of them – writing and illustrating a book about Cassie and culture – we handed over the workshop to Cassie who showcased a small portion of how and why she looks after the envrionment and shares her knowledge and passion for culture.

Cassie has embraced her cultural heritage backgrounds and is now dedicated to living what she teaches and sharing her knowledge and experiences with everyone. She is also an accomplished artist, having gallery displays, winning awards and the future is looking very bright for her future artistic ventures.

We are thoroughly looking forward to reading the story that the Briag’ students plan to develop over the rest of term 2 about this very inspirational woman.

Pictured above: Cassie Leatham with school captains Riley and Aidan wearing Cassie’s possum skin rugs.

Some skins and skulls help us learn more about the animal as well as being functional.

Some bush tucker, coolamons and other items Cassie had on display.

Cassie shows the difference between the native Australian brush tailed possum skins (left) and the feral New Zealand brush tailed possum skins (right).