The ABC’s Right Wrongs series, coinciding with the 50^th anniversary of the 1967 referendum, has won the 2017 United Nations Day Media Award for best online project.

The series features a short documentary, produced by Djiringanj and Ngarigo man David Dixon and the ABC’s Vanessa Milton, telling the story of Djiringanj and Ngarigo Elders Colleen and Glenda Dixon, who along with their family and many others were forced to live at a tip site north of Bega until the 1960s.

Forced to move from the Bega River by council and police, memories of breathing in dioxins from burning rubbish as a child and living at times in fear of her life, brings tears to Glenda’s eyes.

“The more I reflect on it, it makes me angrier as to how that happened, and explains why I’m in so much pain every day,” 61-year-old Glenda said.

“I really believe having the story circulating and staying fresh in people's minds will help make sure that it never happens again to any human being.

“After it was shown one of my friends, who is a white girl, gave me a hug and said she was really sorry.

“It’s time people knew the truth, a lot of people don’t really know what happened in this country.”

For Colleen the retelling of the stories of her childhood was also like living it all over again.

“A lot of our people who lived there are suffering from health problems,” she said.

“On hot windy days we would cop smoke and raw sewage, and we were breathing it in as children.

“Little did we know, we were exposed to all these chemicals coming out of the rubbish, and from eating out of the tip.

“As kids we didn’t know,” she said.

After hearing of the award Colleen shed shed a tear, remembering a time when the region’s original inhabitants were locked up if they were seen in town after dark.

“As children we just thought it was normal, but now we realise the way we were treated just wasn’t right,” she said.