In September of this year a group of fifteen students from St Ursula’s College, Toowoomba will travel to the Tiwi Islands in Northern Australia. This trip will be co-facilitated by Executive Officer, Mark Copland. Mark and his family spent 2008 on Melville Island helping to establish Tiwi College, a secondary residential school situated on the Tiwi Islands. One of the aims of the journey is for participants to experience and explore a spirituality of justice.
Some Positive News for a Change
Grab your scissors and cut this piece out. It’s a collector’s item – an article on remote Aboriginal Australia and it’s largely positive! I spent last week with a group of students and staff from St Ursula’s College visiting three remote Aboriginal communities on the Tiwi Islands, 90 km North of Darwin. Our future is in very good hands if this group of young women is any indication. We received a very warm welcome as we visited Nguiu, Milikapiti and Pirlangimpi. And much of what we saw was good.
In Nguiu, the largest of the three Tiwi communities there was building going on everywhere. A number of new houses had been completed and many dilapidated homes were being repaired. On Melville Island we visited Tiwi College – an impressive residential facility designed to be a centre of learning for Tiwi secondary students. In just its second year of operation it is achieving over 70% attendance rates and creating a safe place of learning where young people can still be connected with country and culture. Former Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough and the Howard Government can take credit for these positive developments. Jenny Macklin and the Rudd government to their credit have kept the positive train in motion.
There are still huge gaps but things are certainly moving in the right direction. In the early 2000s the Tiwi Islands had the dubious honour of the highest suicide rate in the world. Predominantly young men were taking their own lives – sometimes at the rate of three in a single night. The life expectancy on the islands is still an average of 48 years but a health and lifestyle strategy called Tiwi for Life is turning things around.
Central to this strategy is Australian Rules football. Many moons ago an MSC brother named John Pye left Downlands College and took AFL to the very far North. The Tiwi made the game their own and the rest is history. With past and present players like Michael Long, Maurice, Dean and Junior Boy Cyril Rioli the islands are a football factory. The Tiwi Bombers are now in the Northern Territory Football League and have made the finals in their first two years. An inspirational initiative – the Clontarf Football Academy runs out of Tiwi College and is part of the reason that the suicide rate is now closer to the national average. This is the best Aboriginal Education project I have witnessed in the past 20 years.
At Pirlangimpi our group visited the local state primary school. More good news. We saw a well equipped classroom with highly trained staff kicking goals in the game of life. We visited the year 6/7 class – a class that has met the national bench marks in literacy and numeracy. They shared with us their ‘turtle dreaming’ project in which they work with the CSIRO in tracking and protecting the Olive Ridley turtle. This school has the highest attendance rate for a community school in the Northern Territory.
There was one glaring omission but I’m not going to ruin the mood with this blight on an otherwise positive visit. There is a long way to go – but the Tiwi Islands demonstrate what is possible when strong local leadership partners government and business in bringing about a better future in what can only be described as a little patch of paradise.
|
