Volunteering in our own backyard

A final-year Sydney University occupational therapy student, now part of ICV’s new internship program aimed at giving health workers experience in Aboriginal environments, was due to spend her work experience placement in India. But then she realised the need here in her own backyard of rural New South Wales.

Our community development approach sees communities as resources. Communities, whatever their problems, have assets and they must be recognised if sustainable change is to be achieved.

We are working with people who have come to expect inaction and broken promises, so we try to be responsive. Our volunteers are trained to be culturally sensitive, and above all, flexible as they look, listen and learn, then offer their experience and gain an enormous amount back.

In the wake of the Productivity Commission report, the Prime Minister has talked about “the need to treble efforts to make an impact”.

That effort must be done in urban and regional centres as much as in remote Australia.

If you are born in Australia and are an Aborigine you are, on average, three times more likely to die before the age of one. If you are an Aborigine and born in the city, you are five times more likely to die before reaching the age of one.

Even here in the ACT there are needs that often fall under the radar.

The past 18 months ICV has been working with a group of Aboriginal grandmothers and carers in Canberra, increasing their social and health supports as they care for their sick men, many ill with diabetes. Volunteers have assisted with website-development and grant applications, nurturing entrepreneurship through business skills training.

Many Canberra-based public servants are on the front-line, giving up their time, refusing to be blasé about Indigenous disadvantage or to let fatalistic hopelessness set in.