Archives January 2015

Burrup Rock Art

A steep drop in Aboriginal sites being added to WA's heritage register is leading to "a vast sea of ignorance" that will thwart heritage protection, according to Carmen Lawrence, the chair of the Australian Heritage Council.
After changing the heritage laws to favour mining companies, Aboriginal Affairs Minister said some places "presented as worthy of protection" were "of little or no interest" to Aborigines and that only "the industry of heritage professionals" appeared to value those sites. [node:read-more:link]

Indigenous health experts gathered at University of Wollongong this week to introduce an Indigenous trauma recovery program developed at Harvard University.

"Evidence shows us that the processes of colonisation, with the loss of land, identity, family, layers into compound trauma - and what we're finding as evidence is compound trauma rolls into physical and psychological problems," said Debra Hocking - [node:read-more:link]

A book by Bruce Elder which has become widely used in teaching Aboriginal history at both secondary and tertiary levels. Bruce's account of the atrocities committed as white settlers pushed into the rich grazing lands is handled with a journalistic objectivity. One gruesome event at Myall Creek, Elder skillfully juxtaposes the harmonious relationships between the Aboriginal people and the farmhands, with a renegade gang determined to seek retribution on any Aboriginal people that happen to cross their path. [node:read-more:link]

A federal government Ministers meeting passed a resolution supporting the four broad themes for change outlined in the federal government's initial response, which are reducing the overcrowding in the curriculum, promoting a parent-friendly version of the curriculum, improving accessibility for students with disabilities, and rebalancing the curriculum with the removal of the 'overarching themes' of Australian First Nations, Asia and sustainability issues embedded in curriculum subjects. [node:read-more:link]

In the Anangu Pitjintjatjara Yangkunjatjara lands in northern South Australia, Ngangkari healers work alongside doctors and medical staff in community clinics and hospitals, and often visit Adelaide to attend to Indigenous hospital patients.
 
In the mental health area their involvement in the care of Aboriginal people is even enshrined in state law, and Ngangkari deal with everything from childhood illnesses to loss of spirit.

First Nations people are experiencing racism while seeking health care, say Victorian researchers. The authors found those who had experienced racism in a health setting were more likely to experience increased psychological distress than those who experienced racism in a different setting or had experienced no racism at all. Almost every Aboriginal Victorian who participated in this survey had experienced at least one racist incident in the previous 12 months.
- Includes a summary of Coroners Report into the Death of Ms DHU, WA, 2016. [node:read-more:link]

Anthony Martin Fernando was one of the first Aboriginal political activists yet he lived more than half his life overseas.

He is believed to have led a solitary life but had an extraordinary political career.

On his sometimes wandering journey, he left evidence - bits and pieces of an activist life that we're only now putting together. Fernando told anyone who cared to listen that his people were being exterminated, that the toy skeletons he sold on the streets of London were all that Australia had left of his people. [node:read-more:link]