Tiddas forever

MARLEE SILVA, THE CO-CREATOR OF Tiddas 4 Tiddas, EXPLAINS HOW SHE AND HER SISTER STARTED A MOVEMENT TO CELEBRATE inspiring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, AND WHY SISTERHOOD IS SUCH A POWERFUL CONCEPT

The first time I felt the power of the sisterhood, I must have been just 15. I was sent on a camp for young Indigenous leaders on the Gold Coast for a week. It was the first time I’d been on a plane without my parents, and when I arrived, I found I was the youngest of the 100 or so other high-school students in attendance.

I’d not yet graduated from crop tops to proper underwire bras, I had a mouth full of metal, a side fringe and an affliction for sucking at making new friends. We’re all a bit awkward at some point during our teenage years, but that time on the Gold Coast was the peak of my fragile unsureness. Growing up as an Aboriginal female in an almost exclusively white area of Sydney made for sweet opportunities for my peers to take their insecurities out on me, constantly reminding me that I was different.

I came to this leadership camp at a time in my life when situations such as speaking to retail workers while paying for something made me squirm and feel short of breath. So you can imagine the state I was in when I was shoved into a room full of strangers, most of whom were two years older than me, and forced to introduce myself.

I remember the first day of the camp clearly. It was February in Queensland. A wet, sticky heat sat in the air. Everyone was sweating, so at least that element of my nerves wasn’t noticeable. In typical blackfulla style, a lot of us were late, so we were herded straight through to a room for registration. As kids do, we quickly got restless. What began as bubbling murmurs quickly erupted into loud conversations and cackling laughter. In my fear and shyness, my heart sank as it seemed everyone already knew each other — like they had already formed their groups within 15 minutes of being together and I, as usual, had missed the boat.