Aden+Ridgeway

=__//**﻿Aden Ridgeway**//__= Aden Derek Ridgeway was born on the 18th September 1962. He was the second Aboriginal senator in over 100 years. He has been the leader of the National Executive party and also the leader of the Gumbayynigrr people. He has provided a lot of public services to the communities of Australia. He has also given a way for the Indigenous people of Australia a voice in parliament for 6 years. During a young age, Ridgeway was watched over by his mother, his grandmother, Phoebe Mumbler, and his grandmother’s sisters. He lived in the area of Macksville for a period of his life then left for the towns and cities like Redfern and finally moving to Sydney to finish his primary school studies. He later moves onto a Catholic Secondary boarding school known as St John College. He left school at the age of seventeen in year eleven. Ridgeway worked in many different occupations. After leaving Secondary school, he worked for three years as an assistant of the Service’s Cultural and Historic Division; he later worked as a National Park Ranger for another two years. He changes to do some public services by working in the Administrative Services and Department of Mineral and Energy. From 1990 to 1994, he became the Councilor of the Sydney region of the organization known as ATSIC or the Australian and Torres Strait Islander Commission. In 1994, he became the Executive Director of the NSW Aboriginal Land Council. In 1998, he changed history as yet another Indigenous Australian man had entered the Senate. He worked as a Senator for six years and retired at 2005. Two major achievements Aden Ridgeway had attained were, the National NAIDOC Person of the Year award in 2004 and becoming the 2nd Aboriginal Senator in Australia. As a result of these two accomplishments, it has given the Indigenous people a better life as they had a voice in parliament, it influenced other indigenous people to follow a exceptional example, it has inspired others that although they are different, they can reach for the same goals. As he has been parliament, he has raised the awareness of the indigenous people, their lives and their language. However, during Ridgeway’s time inside the parliaments he could not stop his friends, family or his fellow Indigenous people from dying so he had attended countless funerals. He has made it through all these years in parliament before leaving and went back to the normal world to live with his indigenous people. He has given the indigenous with more hope of a better life and a more respected life. After Neville Bonner, he was the next person to raise hope in his people.

**Bibliography ** [] [] [] [] [] []