Darryl Kickett with Kimberley Wilson. Mr Kickett is keen on a delegation of Nyungar Elders meeting Warren Mundine and Prime Minister Abbott to discuss incorporating healing plans into Treaties – Photo, Gerry Georgatos

The current NAIDOC Person of the Year, Darryl Kickett is calling on the Indigenous Advisory Council and the Prime Minister to support Treaties underwritten by healing. Mr Kickett is calling on the Chair of the Indigenous Advisory Council, Warren Mundine and Prime Minister Tony Abbott to meet with a delegation of Nyungars who are ready to discuss Treaty and the assertion that a healing plan must be incorporated into Treaties.

Mr Kickett is leading a delegation of eminent Nyungar Elders in laying out healing and cultural recovery plans. Mr Kickett said without healing plans enriching Treaty discussions the myriad social ills which blight many Aboriginal communities will continue – the suicide crisis, the high incarceration rates, the various familial and community dysfunctions, the extreme poverty.

The Nyungar people represent a number of clans over a vast region of south west Western Australia, including Perth. They number more than 40,000, the largest population within Aboriginal nations.

Mr Kickett is a former Chairperson of the highly successful youth organisation HALO, turning around the lives of troubled youth – HALO has a very high success rate. Mr Kickett is also an Aboriginal Liaison Officer with Anglicare and a facilitator with Red Dust Healing. Alongside many others he has been rolling out Red Dust Healing to the Nyungar nation. Mr Kickett put the 28 staff of the South West Aboriginal Land and  Sea Council through Red Dust Healing.

“It was an emotional experience but a positive experience for them, many of them were crying,” said Mr Kickett.

“Aboriginal peoples are only just starting to find out about things like why we are hurting. I mean the real reasons we are hurting.”

“We know we come from a history of dispossession, rejection and powerlessness.”

“However, it is important to note that conveying the events of history and the impact of colonisation is not about pointing the finger and blame. It is about giving understanding about the impacts it has had on our families.”

Mr Kickett said that Red Dust Healing assists people to heal deep emotional wounds that they and their families before them have experienced. “These experiences and the psychological damage they inflict are major contributors to poor motivation in life.”

He said if Mr Mundine incorporates healing into Treaties, that once “the healing journey has commenced it is very likely that their time will become more peaceful and more productive.” These feelings left buried inside leak out or explode in uncontrolled and unsafe environments, such as home, a workplace or a prison.

“It is much safer for these feelings to come up in a safe environment like Red Dust Healing than anywhere else in the workplace, or in the community.”

“If Mr Mundine and Mr Abbott are serious about Treaties and moving our people forward then healing has to be part of any Treaty.”

“Why are so many of our people still dying from the effects of alcohol, violence and drugs, and now suicide? I found the answer for myself in the broken spirit of our people. We can spend billions of dollars on doctors and health programs but there’ll be little improvement if the spirit of our people is not given the chance to heal.”

“The big ticket item to look at is Aboriginal health and this one evidence is indisputable and undeniable on how damaged spirits have contributed the most appalling health statistics in not just Australia, but in the world.”

“Many of us fortunate enough to be working use up our Sorry Business leave early in the year. The suicides have increased the tide of grief and trauma into tsunami-like proportions. The pipeline effect of stress from all of this according to researchers will ensure the trends for the diseases and the deaths will continue,” said Mr Kickett.

“What Government decision-makers do not fully comprehend is how the powerful undercurrents of trauma and grief gradually but surely stifle the capacity to thrive within individuals, families and communities. The primary effect of trauma and grief is rejection and like an infectious disease rejection has reached epidemic proportions.”

Mr Kickett said healing plans have the capacity to rebuild the potential and capabilities of First Nations People, “and reduce the harm that is being caused to families and communities.”

“Red Dust Healing is an important catalyst for people to change and find that healthy pathway. We can build a tipping point for healing through a cadre of capable people.”

According to Mr Kickett healing must be used to make families resilient “against rejection and stress, to make themselves self-starters in healing and to become leaders in developing a community that can heal itself.”

Mr Kickett said that it is a must-do that healing be led by and involve only First Nations people – Aboriginal advancement by Aboriginal people.

“It does not matter how well qualified someone is, this is about our people and must be led by our people only.”

He said that Nyungar people have commenced the movement of spiritual healing. “We are breaking the trans-generational trauma and the cycles of violence and imprisonment that take men out of their families, and they are learning to show the loving respect to their wives and children that the old people taught.” He said that healing is “a vital cornerstone” in the recovery of “a strong Nyungar culture.”

“If Mr Mundine and Mr Abbott want our people to heal, to move forward, to thrive, if they want to end the misery that far too many endure, then they will sit at the table with us, a Nyungar delegation of our Elders and we can discuss healing and how it can be incorporated into Treaties.”

Further information:

NAIDOC recipient calls for Healing Treaty – NIRS news

Red Dust Healing for Nyungar people – NIRS news