Health

As the temperature begins to go into the high 40s, there is a focus on ensuring that our young ones are enjoying a safe summer in Bourke.

In preparation for this week hosting IndigenousX to talk about Black Rainbow and why I started it and why I have persevered challenged me to look inward for first time in a very long time.  I will share some horrific personal experiences, not all of them, in an attempt to provide perhaps some context for what drives me and why I believe what Black Rainbow is trying to do is so vitally important.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has today released its 2016 Causes of Death data which includes annual national suicide information. Analysis provided by Mindframe revealed that 162 (119 male, 43 female) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people died by suicide, which is slightly higher than the 152 recorded in 2015.

I’m exhausted. The constant background noise of the ‘debate’ on Marriage Equality has had a toll on me and on a lot of queer Australians. As a member of a strong, but marginalised community, this debate has been devastating.

There has been a lot of talk from both the Northern Territory and federal governments recently about the rivers of royalties, jobs and other benefits they claim will come from opening up the Territory to vast new shale fracking gas fields.

Over three years ago, I began a PhD in Indigenous women’s leadership in Australia, specifically looking at the current era we are in. What an era it is: not a day goes by without a story coming up on my Twitter feed about yet another issue that directly affects us as Indigenous people (with our voices largely ignored).

In our songs and dances, there are some parts that talk about how to get food from the bushland, the open land, from the sand dunes, the beaches and the sea.

Australia ‘has systematically implemented policies that are born of a rhetoric suggesting that the state is somehow protecting Aboriginal children better than their families’.

Grandmothers Against Removals say too many Indigenous children are being removed from their culture when Aboriginal family or community members would be able to care for them.

As we commemorate Sorry Day on 26 May, it is vital to also recognise that 20 years has passed since the release of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission’s Bringing Them Home report.

My role as program manager with the Hunter New England local public health unit involves leading the development and delivery of effective strategies for combating communicable diseases like the flu.

Just about everywhere I turn in Canberra I am reminded of how this city is a place of representations. From the mountains to the lake, from the numerous government buildings to the resistance camp at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, these are all representations of power and agency.

Meet Dr Catherine Chamberlain, a recognised contributor to Aboriginal women’s health research and a recipient of an Australian Government Endeavour Research Fellowship for Indigenous Australians.

I always doubted myself before completing any given task at school because I was Aboriginal. I was growing up in a society where hearing the words “abo”, “boong”, and “unemployed” at school was completely normal.

As I sit and ponder the “what could have been” in my life, I am so very thankful for every single knock, put down, set back, break-up I’ve ever had.

The Barkly region is a hot spot for family violence and child abuse. The community is crying out for a strong response but the resources they have are inadequate, writes @IndigenousX host Fiona Hamilton, a Tasmanian Aboriginal woman of the Trawlwulwuy Nation, a writer, artist, family violence educator and activist. She is a survivor of family violence.

“There is little difference between being caught in a violent relationship and the relationship we must have with structures and systems.”

“I’ve seen Indigenous patients treated with suspicion and denied pain relief. We need cultural awareness programs on all levels of the system”, writes Colleen Lavelle, a strong Wakka Wakka woman, mother of four, with an inoperable brain tumour.