At the time of filming In My Blood It Runs, Dujuan Hoosan was just 10 years old, but he could see how the education system did not value his cultural knowledge.
Dujuan is a proud Arrernte and Garrwa boy who lives in Hidden Valley town camp in Alice Springs. He also has healing powers; a gift his grandfather passed on to him.
“It’s my job to look after the people,” he says in the film.
Throughout the film we see Dujuan use his hands to heal his family members.
In one scene, his aunt asks him to heal her while she is in a hospital bed with a leg wound.
But we also see Dujuan struggle with school attendance — a challenge many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children face across the county.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that primary school attendance rates for Indigenous students “did not improve between 2014 and 2018 and they remained below the rate for non-Indigenous students”.
By following Dujuan we can learn why this is a challenge for young Indigenous kids and Indigenous families.
‘I’m a bush kid’
Dujuan can speak three languages but struggles with reading and writing at school.
“If you finish primary school and then finish high school, then you learn. But I’m a bush kid,” he said.
“I was born a little Aboriginal kid. That mean