“We need a balance. We need our old people to come and talk to them in regards to culture. To survive, there has to be balance,” said Derby Elder, Lorna Hudson.
“All of our mob has been pulled into town into somebody else’s Country.”
“People are being isolated from culture.”
“You can empower our people by supporting them and listening to them, by sitting down with them and talking to them face-to-face and that’s not happening.”
“A lot of young people are still trying to identify themselves as to who they are. They have been cast aside from the mainstream and they see themselves as no good. When you are nobody, what’s the use of living? That’s when our people turn to alcohol and drugs to forget about what has been going on.”
“All you can see here in these towns is non-Aboriginal culture, the grog, the drugs, it is sad.”
More than 50 leading researchers, academics, government and coalface community workers attended, yesterday and today, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health and Suicide Prevention roundtable in Perth. The two-day event was attended by prominent Canadian suicide prevention academic, Emeritus Professor Michael Chandler, who has worked extensively with First Nations communities in North America.
Professor Chandler said the ways forward include the need to explore why some communities have low or zero suicide rates while others have high rates.
Indigenous Mental Health Commissioner, Bardi woman Professor Pat Dudgeon coordinated and led the roundtable panel, discussions and workshops. Professor Dudgeon said that the roundtable will charter recommendations to the Federal Government on ways to address the issues.
The peak suicide prevention roundtable heard from Elders and coalface workers that without government funding youth cannot be adequately supported. Kimberley Elder Lorna Hudson said cultural work vital to empowerment and identity is not attracting funding. Ms Hudson said that cultural programs “to assist our youth require urgent funding.”
Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation CEO Robert Eggington said that mental health “has been industrialised and commercialised” and is driven by profiteers rather than community-driven needs.
Prior to the roundtable, on Friday, Federal Minister Nigel Scullion met for two and half hours on the suicides crises with Professor Dudgeon and myself. Minister Scullion committed to responding to the crises and said that action must be “taken now”. He asked that he should be guided as to the ways forward and that he is ready to take the lead among his parliamentary colleagues with the responding. This is a must-do and we all agree.
Suicide can also be understood as the result of multiple, continuous and complex violations of The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Chandler and his colleague Lalonde noted (1998), “If a simple job or marital instability is enough to heighten one’s risk to suicide… then what are the prospects for self-harm when one’s whole culture is officially condemned, one’s religion criminalised, one’s language is forbidden, and one’s right to rear and educate one’s children suspended?”
Links
More reading:
Break the taboo around suicides, we reduce suicides
Suicide crises born of Australia’s inhumanity
From my father’s death bed to the must do to end the suicides
Hour long interview on the crisis on Let’s Talk – 2013
Elders across Australia say Governments need to listen to them on how to address youth suicide
Government’s promise on ending suicides must come good now
The must-do need to listen and trust if suicides crisis is to end
Elders across Australia say Governments need to listen to them on how to address youth suicide
Suicides – western society and ancient cultures clash
If we are serious about suicide prevention
Australia’s suicide crisis should not be played down – the media must highlight it
Australia’s suicide crises and my meeting with Federal Minister Nigel Scullion
Hundreds more will suicide if we wait for 2015
Nothing will be done about the suicide crisis
Suicide crisis – genocidal numbers
Suicide crisis – from tragic to catastrophic
Suicide crisis needs real funding and actions
400 suicides of ATSI peoples in the last three years
30 suicides in the last three months as we wait for promises to be kept
WA Government supports end to suicide crisis but ironically cuts funding
In identity lay the answers – ATSI suicides
Beagle Bay to State Parliament, Farrer speak out on suicides Government to address Aboriginal suicides
996 Aboriginal deaths by suicide – another shameful Australian record
996 deaths by suicide – one in 24 die by suicide
Macklin said we will take child suicides seriously
Australia’s Aboriginal suicide epidemic – whose child will be the next to die?
77 Aboriginal suicides in South Australia alone
Wes Morris slams Government suicide prevention programs
The Federal Government is not listening while people die
Suicide attempts among women on the rise
Political reaction needed to end suicides
Dumbartung convenes suicide crisis summit
Quality of Life for Australians 2nd only to Norway but for Aboriginal peoples 122nd
Australia’s Aboriginal children, the world’s highest suicide rate
Youth suicides toll higher than Afghan war deaths
Warren Mundine including the suicide crisis to the IAC mandate Suicide gap widening, says researcher
WA begins to pop a buck – http://nirs.org.au/blog/NEWS/article/34554/Funding-announced-for-suicide-prevention-.html