A good news story for Indigenous kids
Reading a story in today’s Sydney Morning Herald, I was reminded of just how influential and successful passionate and proactive individuals can be.
The page 9 article is a positive news story about a group of Indigenous kids from the remote town of Ti Tree (about 140km north of Alice Springs) who are being schooled in Sydney. To date, Ti Tree can only boast one student who has completed Year 12.
Now these kids are not in Sydney as part of a government-funded initiative. They are there because their teacher Erin Greenhalgh, took it upon herself to bring them to Sydney and volunteer as their guardian.
In my opinion, she has taken a definitive step towards closing that oft-quoted gap which the government does little more than pay lip service to.
Last year, when researching a feature article for Medical Observer on academic pathways for Indigenous Australians, I spoke to Dr Tamara Mackean, president of the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association.
She told me that poor educational outcomes for many Indigenous Australians were a result of them not completing primary and secondary education.
“We have a lot of drop-offs so there’s a problem with throughput, which can be an issue. It’s really all about giving people choices and allowing people to have aspirations,” said Dr Mackean.
Meanwhile, Dr Kim Webber from the Rural Health Workforce Agency, pointed out that a good education for one child not only benefited them, but potentially many others to whom they could be a role model as a student and, later, as a member of the workforce.
Dr Webber spoke to me specifically about the pathways into a career in healthcare, but I think her advice could be broadened to include the many careers which require a solid academic background.
“It needs to start back at school. People need to obtain entry into university so they are going to have to complete high school… (and) I think the role for Indigenous workers within the workforce is to be role models for their peers.”
The reason I have chosen to write about Erin Greenhalgh’s achievement today is that last year I spent some time in Utopia, which is 130km north-east of Ti Tree, accessible only via hundreds of kilometres of corrugated desert track.
I visited the outstations and witnessed the poverty, the joblessness and the lack of opportunity that exists in these remote Aboriginal communities. So, any opportunity to help kids from these remote communities has got to be a good thing.
Don’t get wrong though. Not for a millisecond am I advocating that we, as a nation, go down the route of disempowering these people and demanding they void their connections to country and move to the city so they can go to school and find work.
I know for a fact from my conversations with Utopia’s locals and their GP Dr Karmanandra Saraswati, that their survival and their physical, mental and spiritual health is intrinsically linked to country.
Nor do I assume that the decision made by these kids from Ti Tree, or their families, was an easy one. There would have had to have been financial, cultural and emotional challenges to consider.
My point is simply that by giving these kids the opportunity to complete their education in a well-resourced school, Ms Greehalgh has given them choices they may otherwise never have had.
These kids may go on to become doctors, nurses and allied health workers who can meet the healthcare needs of Indigenous communities if they so choose; they may become politicians who, with their cultural understanding, could develop policies that do truly close the gap; as role models right now, they are undoubtedly inspiring their peers back home to learn as much as they can from their small outback school.
Big change can come from little steps.
If the blokes we put in charge in Canberra stopped their bickering for a second and followed the cues of those many individuals in our community who are making a difference, perhaps they’d be more influential and successful too.
The page 9 article is a positive news story about a group of Indigenous kids from the remote town of Ti Tree (about 140km north of Alice Springs) who are being schooled in Sydney. To date, Ti Tree can only boast one student who has completed Year 12.
Now these kids are not in Sydney as part of a government-funded initiative. They are there because their teacher Erin Greenhalgh, took it upon herself to bring them to Sydney and volunteer as their guardian.
In my opinion, she has taken a definitive step towards closing that oft-quoted gap which the government does little more than pay lip service to.
Last year, when researching a feature article for Medical Observer on academic pathways for Indigenous Australians, I spoke to Dr Tamara Mackean, president of the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association.
She told me that poor educational outcomes for many Indigenous Australians were a result of them not completing primary and secondary education.
“We have a lot of drop-offs so there’s a problem with throughput, which can be an issue. It’s really all about giving people choices and allowing people to have aspirations,” said Dr Mackean.
Meanwhile, Dr Kim Webber from the Rural Health Workforce Agency, pointed out that a good education for one child not only benefited them, but potentially many others to whom they could be a role model as a student and, later, as a member of the workforce.
Dr Webber spoke to me specifically about the pathways into a career in healthcare, but I think her advice could be broadened to include the many careers which require a solid academic background.
“It needs to start back at school. People need to obtain entry into university so they are going to have to complete high school… (and) I think the role for Indigenous workers within the workforce is to be role models for their peers.”
The reason I have chosen to write about Erin Greenhalgh’s achievement today is that last year I spent some time in Utopia, which is 130km north-east of Ti Tree, accessible only via hundreds of kilometres of corrugated desert track.
I visited the outstations and witnessed the poverty, the joblessness and the lack of opportunity that exists in these remote Aboriginal communities. So, any opportunity to help kids from these remote communities has got to be a good thing.
Don’t get wrong though. Not for a millisecond am I advocating that we, as a nation, go down the route of disempowering these people and demanding they void their connections to country and move to the city so they can go to school and find work.
I know for a fact from my conversations with Utopia’s locals and their GP Dr Karmanandra Saraswati, that their survival and their physical, mental and spiritual health is intrinsically linked to country.
Nor do I assume that the decision made by these kids from Ti Tree, or their families, was an easy one. There would have had to have been financial, cultural and emotional challenges to consider.
My point is simply that by giving these kids the opportunity to complete their education in a well-resourced school, Ms Greehalgh has given them choices they may otherwise never have had.
These kids may go on to become doctors, nurses and allied health workers who can meet the healthcare needs of Indigenous communities if they so choose; they may become politicians who, with their cultural understanding, could develop policies that do truly close the gap; as role models right now, they are undoubtedly inspiring their peers back home to learn as much as they can from their small outback school.
Big change can come from little steps.
If the blokes we put in charge in Canberra stopped their bickering for a second and followed the cues of those many individuals in our community who are making a difference, perhaps they’d be more influential and successful too.
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