Antinuclear

The fight to save rural Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities  The Stringer October 26th, 2014 By Sarka Hill.“……..Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Sydney and Vice President of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Public Health Association of Australia, Ms Vanessa Lee, said with the Government’s new plan to develop Northern Australia, the ramifications could further widen the gap Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organizations have been fighting so hard to close among these rural communities.

“Our current Government is putting out a Green Paper called ‘The New Frontier’which includes Western Australia, Northern Territory and Northern Queensland, and they’re talking about the economic viability of the new frontier,” Lee said.

“What that translates to, is mining, taking of land, and when you start removing people from their land, then you can’t close the gap because you’re once again denying people their human rights.”

Aunty Pat, said communities need home bases, where a sense of belonging can be achieved, and children educated in the old ways to provide a path to the future where the loss their ancestor’s suffered can be replaced with traditional culture.

“We need to have a place where we can deal with a holistic approach of taking a family on a property and do the healing process,” Aunty Pat said.

“It will not take three months or six months, it could take a whole year and on this property we should have trained qualified people who will deal with the children and have some form of a mini school for the children to learn how to read and write the old way.”

Ms Vanessa Lee, said it’s crucial for our government and our country to try to understand how the land is important to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.

“I don’t think people understand the whole importance of land to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, it’s not just land rights, it’s a sense of spirituality,” Lee said.

“Everything comes from the earth and goes back to the earth, and that’s where you’ve got the Dreaming happening.”

Mr James said there’s evidence that what these organizations are doing out there is helping and making a difference, but they need continual support……..http://thestringer.com.au/forgotten-children-of-the-promised-land-the-fight-to-save-rural-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-communities-8944#.VE6TiiLF8nk