The first Commissioner for Aborigine Children and Youth of the state of Victoria is half Greek and half Aborigine. This is Andrew Jacomo, the son of Greek Alex Jacomo, the first white man embraced by the natives as a “leader”.
For 14 years, Andrew Jacomo was a senior official of the Ministry of Education, responsible for radical reforms regarding the legal system and the trials of the aborigines, as well as on the formal agreements between the state and the aborigine Victorians.
Ne noted: “My job is to make sure that the government implements its commitments and promises for change. My duty is to supervise and control all those who come into contact with vulnerable aborigine children “.
His father, Alec Giacomo, who was from Kastelorizo, devoted his life to aborigines, after he met and married in 1951 at the age of 25 years old, Merle, from the Yorta Yorta tribe.
An activist, with little education, he fought for the future of the Aborigines, as a “student” of Banjo Clarke the elder, known as the “Wise Man”, and also a student of Sir Doug Nicholls, who fought like no other for the aborigines’ human rights.
Alec Giacomo took part in the campaign for the referendum in 1967 targeting the recognition of the right of the Aborigines to be considered Australian citizens and be recorded at the population census.
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