<p style="text-align:center"><em><span style="font-size:12px">AES Board members workshop elements of the RAP vision at their meeting on 22 July 2017</span></em></p>

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<p>At the July Australasian Evaluation Society Board meeting, Amohia Boulton along with her Aboriginal Board colleagues Sharon Clarke and Doyen Radcliffe, led the board through the process of developing a Reconciliation Action plan (RAP) for the AES Board.</p>

<p>A Reconciliation Action Plan or RAP is a business plan that documents what an organisation commits to do, to contribute to reconciliation, in Australia. A RAP enables organisations to commit to implementing and measuring practical actions that build respectful relationships and create opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.</p>

<p>There are four different RAPs within the overall Reconciliation programme: Reflect; Innovate; Stretch and Elevate. As this is the first Reconciliation Action Plan that the AES has ever developed, the Society has started at the very beginning by developing a &ldquo;Reflect&rdquo; RAP.</p>

<p>Board members have workshopped elements of the RAP over a number of Board meetings and at the July meeting, in a collaborative process came up with the vision for the AES:&nbsp;</p>

<p style="margin-left:40px">Australia respects, recognises and values Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples&rsquo; history, past and present, their sovereignty, and their right to determine their own future.&nbsp; The impact of colonisation on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is understood, and owned, by all of us. Through a process of healing, we come together as one to build a better future.</p>

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<p>From this point, the Board will complete the final elements of the RAP and send it to Reconciliation Australia (<a href="http://www.reconciliation.org.au/raphub/" target="_blank">www.reconciliation.org.au</a>) for review and comment. Once these comments have been incorporated the RAP will be sent out to Society members with a view to the Society adopting and launching the RAP at the next AES conference in September 2019.</p>

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<p style="text-align:center"><img alt="A ?wordle? developed from the workshopping of the RAP vision statement" src="/uploads/images/reconciliation-plan-development2.jpg" style="height:420px; width:650px" /><br />
<em><span style="font-size:12px">A &ldquo;wordle&rdquo; developed from the workshopping of the RAP vision statement.</span></em></p>
