Finding Our Heart: A Story about the Uluru Statement for Young Australians

About Thomas MayoThomas Mayor

Thomas Mayo is a Torres Strait Islander man born on Larrakia country in Darwin. As an Islander growing up on the mainland he learned to hunt traditional foods with his father and to island dance from the Darwin community of Torres Strait Islanders. In high school Thomass English teacher suggested he should become a writer. He didnt think then that he would become one of the first ever Torres Strait Islander authors to have a book published for the general trade. Instead he became a wharf labourer from the age of seventeen until he became a union official for the Maritime Union of Australia in his early thirties. Quietly spoken in character Thomas found his voice on the wharves. As he gained the skills of negotiation and organising in the union movement he applied those skills to advancing the rights of Indigenous peoples becoming a signatory to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and a tireless campaigner. Following the Uluru Convention Thomas was entrusted to carry the sacred canvas of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. He then embarked on an eighteen-month journey around the country to garner support for a constitutionally enshrined First Nations voice and a Makarrata Commission for truth-telling and agreement-making or treaties. Thomass journey continues both in person and through the pages of this book for young Australians.