Issue 15, September 2013

Issue 15, September 2013 | Youth Workers’ Newsletter 1

Youth Workers’ Newsletter

Editorial by John Amadio

In this edition...

I have often reflected on what it is that motivates people to become involved in helping their fellow human beings. There is no doubt, that many of us could turn to other pursuits such as ‘making money’ or following a purely personal, ego centric interest, whether that be surfing, ‘tinkering with cars’ or turning that interest into something more professional and income generating such as becoming an IT games guru etc..

However, for many of us, we feel a strong desire to be doing something to help others. I remember when I lived and worked on the APY Lands, and I was telling friends at a party or at a conference about what I do and where I live. They would sometimes stare at me before launching into all their personal views on what can be done or how hopeless it all is.

When I was actively involved in my local community through the Resident’s Association and environmental groups, people would say ‘Why do you bother’? or, ‘It is a waste of time because we cannot make any difference’ . I have sometimes pondered something an Anangu friend of mine said to me more than 20 years ago. We were on a trip together out in the desert and we were talking about the meaning and purpose of life, death and a whole lot of other things as you are prone to do when travelling across vast

distances on lonely, isolated dirt roads. She made the point that although she was not sure about God, she knew she had this life. She also knew she could not take any money, or possessions with her when she died. She wanted to be remembered as someone who helped people. She wanted that to be her legacy.

I am not suggesting we all do things to help our fellow human beings due to the need for a legacy. However, it does make the point that doing something worthwhile is more likely to be remembered and appreciated by those left behind, and is more rewarding than doing something only for yourself. I have always found it immensely more satisfying to know that I have assisted someone or a worthwhile cause than the satisfaction of making money. I can do both. I have had a penchant to be able to make money if I put my mind and my obsessive personality to it, but it does not provide me with a sense of satisfaction, or fulfilment.

The best teachers, doctors and youth and community workers that I have encountered have all possessed a sense of commitment and responsibility towards their neighbours, community and fellow beings. They have all had a desire to help and assist others even to the detriment of their own comfort.

Continued on page 2

The next President?............................................... 2

Malala Yousafzai .................................................... 3

What I have learned ............................................. 3

Australian story - Children of a Lesser God ..... 4

First Indigenous Australians at Oxford.............. 5

Unfair and unbalanced: misreporting the petrol sniffing ‘scourge’ ................................. 8

DESIDERATA .......................................................... 9

Youth member profiles ...................................... 10

Youth centres ......................................................... 11

2 Youth Workers’ Newsletter | Issue 15, September 2013

Sometimes this is called altruism, or being altruistic. There are positive mental health outcomes associated with doing something for someone else. The Mental Heath Foundation of Scotland (and may others) puts the benefits of helping others like this –

“When we put other people’s needs before our own, whether it’s offering your seat to a pregnant woman on a bus or making a cup of tea for a work colleague you will reap the benefits ! While many of us feel too stressed and busy to worry about helping others, or say we’ll focus on doing good deeds when we have more ‘spare time’, evidence shows that helping others is actually beneficial for your own mental health and wellbeing. It can reduce stress as well as improve mood, self-esteem and happiness.

There are many different ways that you can help others as part of your everyday life. Carrying out good deeds doesn’t need to take a lot of time or even cost money. Small changes can make a big difference.”

• Itpromotespositivephysiologicalchangesinthebrainassociatedwithhappiness These rushes are often followed by longer periods of calm and can eventually lead to better wellbeing. Helping others improves social support, encourages us to lead a more physically active lifestyle, distracts us from our own problems, allows us to engage in a meaningful activity and improves our self-esteem and competence.

• Itbringsasenseofbelongingandreducesisolation Being a part of a social network leads to a feeling of belonging. Face-to-face activities such as volunteering at a drop-in centre can help reduce loneliness and isolation.

• Ithelpstokeepthingsinperspective Helping others in need, especially those who are less fortunate than yourself, can provide a real sense of perspective and make you realise how lucky you are, enabling you to stop focusing on what you feel you are missing.

• Anactofkindnesscanimproveconfidence,control,happinessandoptimism. It can also encourage others to repeat the good deed that they’ve experienced themselves – it contributes to a more positive community.

• Themoreyoudoforothers,themoreyoudoforyourself. Evidence shows that the benefits of helping others can last long after the act itself by providing a ‘kindness bank’ of memories that can be drawn upon in the future.

Physical benefits

• Itreducesstress Doing things for others helps maintain good health. Positive emotions reduce stress and boost our immune system, and in turn can protect us against disease.

• Ithelpsgetridofnegativefeelings Negative emotions such as anger, aggression or hostility have a negative impact on our mind and body. Engaging in random acts of kindness can help decrease these feelings and stabilise our overall health.

• Itcanhelpuslivelonger Giving and helping others may increase how long we live. Studies of older people show that those who give support to others live longer than those who don’t.

My own view is that youth workers like many in the helping professions, are motivated by a sense of commitment and responsibility to others that motivates them to undertake work that improves the lives of others. The motivation may be basic or it may be the result of a well thought out understanding of their own purpose in life but the ‘bottom line’ is that pretty well all the youth workers I have encountered care for others and put that into practice.

Here is a link to a short video demonstrating how easy it is to help others: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT-HBl2TVtI

This is an interview with a 12 year old boy prior to the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood when they were still in power in Egypt. It has been authenticated as a legitimate interview.

I am not so much interested in getting into a debate about the situation in Egypt as the incredible insight this lad has into quite complex issues. Again, another example of a quite extraordinary young person. You obviously need access to the internet to play this clip but it is worth watching.

Published on Mar 21, 2013  - Egypt : The Next President?   

This 12 year old boy is stunningly, incredibly smart. Listen to him as he excoriates the Muslim Brotherhood, relentlessly dissecting their power grab for Egypt. If you think he’s just regurgitating a script or something, watch him answer a question about gender equality (1:57).

The original interview was realized by the Egyptian newspaper El Wady, in Cairo, on Oct 19, 2012. Free Arabs (www.freearabs.com) is responsible of the editing, translation and subtitles

Egypt: 12 year old boy analyses Egyptian politics - video

http://guyaneseonline.wordpress.com/2013/07/17

Issue 15, September 2013 | Youth Workers’ Newsletter 3

Malala Yousafzai Colleagues,

We often hear so many negative reports about youth. We all know, however, that they also engage in some incredibly positive behaviour. Below is one example.

The United Nations held a special Youth Assembly on 12 July, Malala Yousafzai’s 16th birthday, to pay tribute to the services and sacrifices of the young Pakistani girl who was shot by the militants in October last year. Born on 12 July 1997, Malala Yousafzai has probably become the only Pakistani and teenager in the world whose birthday was celebrated in such a style. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has already announced observing 10 November as Malala Day, a unique honour for any Pakistani.

In his recent op-ed in the Huffington Post Ban Ki-moon said, “On 12 July, Malala Yousafzai was joined by hundreds of students from more than 80 countries in a unique Youth Assembly where diplomats took a back seat and young people took over the UN.”

Malala is in the race for the Nobel Peace Prize as the youngest ever candidate for the biggest peace prize in the world. Time Magazine has featured Malala as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, carrying her picture on the front cover.

Who is Malala?

Malala Yousafzai - born 12 July 1997 is a Pakistani school pupil and education activist from the town of Mingora in the Swat District of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. She is known for her education

and women’s rights activism in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban had, at times, banned girls from attending school. In early 2009, at the age of 11–12 years, Yousafzai wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC detailing her life under Taliban rule, their attempts to take control of the valley, and her views on promoting education for girls. The following summer, a New York Times documentary was filmed about her life as the Pakistani military intervened in the region, culminating in the Second Battle of Swat. Yousafzai rose in prominence, giving interviews in print and on television, and she was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize by South African activist Desmond Tutu.

On 9 October 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus.

Wikipedia 22 August 2013 John Amadio

What I have Learned by Andy Rooney

I’ve learned...That the best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person. I’ve learned.... That when you’re in love, it shows. I’ve learned.... That just one person saying to me, ‘You’ve made my day!’ makes my day. I’ve learned.... That having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of the most peaceful feelings in the world. I’ve learned.... That being kind is more important than being right. I’ve learned.... That you should never say no to a gift from a child. I’ve learned.... That I can always pray for someone when I don’t have the strength to help him in some other way. I’ve learned.... That no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with. I’ve learned.... That sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.

4 Youth Workers’ Newsletter | Issue 15, September 2013

I first heard of Tara Winkler when I watched an episode of ‘Australian Story’ one Monday night a few years ago.

Below is some introductory info from that episode and a picture of Tara.

Another example of a young woman doing something extraordinary

Program Transcript: Monday 5 April, 2010 Jimmy Barnes (Presenter):

Hi, I’m Jimmy Barnes. Tonight’s program is about someone who at the age 24 is leading a life that leaves me in awe. Tara Winkler has the heart of Mother Teresa and the looks of a supermodel, but her real beauty is within. And she’s taken on a tough project in Cambodia that I’m proud to support. This is her story. Below is an excerpt from her Webpage which can easily be Googled. She makes some very astute observations about aid in general and the purpose of community development programs including the need to break dependency cycles:

This is all from a woman born in 1987 or 1988 and so is now at the ‘ripe old age’ of 25 or 26. Still a youth according to our definition.

21 June 2012“I’ve recently been asked to speak a bit about international aid. Talking on a subject that’s broader than just the work of CCT has inspired me to look a little deeper and do some further research - I’ve recently read Dambisa Moyo’s book ‘Dead Aid’, listened to various online debates and read a number of essays. I thought I might share some of my thoughts on the topic and how CCT fits into the picture.”

“My work in Cambodia began, not as an attempt to eradicate global poverty, but to change the lives of a small group of Cambodian children. So initially I had no goals for CCT beyond giving the kids in my care a life full of hope and opportunities. But over the years I’ve been living in Cambodia and running CCT, I’ve seen some of the problems hindering the progress of Cambodia’s development. I began asking myself some hard questions: ‘is CCT’s work focused on sustainable long-term development? Are we contributing towards the endemic culture of dependency seen in Cambodia today?’ As a result of asking these sorts of questions, my vision for CCT has grown.

The discussion surrounding how to best help those in need is a crucial one. More than a trillion dollars of aid has been given to the developing world in the last few decades and over a billion people are still living in absolute poverty today. Where I live, in Cambodia, over four million people, 30% of the population, are living below the national poverty line. There’s clearly still much to be done and the lives of millions of people depend on us getting it right.

So, before I go into some of the challenges facing international aid, let me first explain what we mean when we talk about aid. As Moyo writes in ‘Dead Aid’, there exists three types of foreign aid: Government-to-government aid, relief or emergency aid and NGO humanitarian aid. Government to Government aid is in the form of payments made directly to governments or via institutions such as the World Bank, relief/emergency aid is provided in response to catastrophes and calamities like the 2004 Asian tsunami and NGO humanitarian aid is aid provided by Non-Government organisations to institutions or people on the ground.

NGOs play a different role in development to that of government-to-government aid. We’re working on different scales with vastly different budgets. But both forms of aid can be powerfully complementary, provided we’re all focused on addressing the challenges that face all forms of aid work.

One of the challenges we face is to ensure international aid is directed at projects that are not focused on hand-outs and charity, which end up creating a cycle of dependency, hindering long-term development. I think that, generally, everyone concerned with poverty reduction agrees the primary focus of international aid needs to be on systemic change. We have to continually ask ourselves, are our projects serving to drive transformative change? “

Australian Story: Children of A Lesser God

Issue 15, September 2013 | Youth Workers’ Newsletter 5

Featured in the Guardian:

Pioneering students are examining the colonial past amid the tradition and ritual of the famous British universityBattling a postcolonial present, rewriting a brutal past, and derided by a conservative minority, Oxford university’s seven-strong group of Aboriginal students are reshaping history.

Aside from the pressures of academic rigour and the symbolism of being ‘firsts’, the group are having to navigate Oxford’s otherworldly centuries-old traditions – the Latin prayers, the dinner gowns, the crystal wine decanters – as they etch their own mark on the oldest university in the English-speaking world.

Rebecca Richards, 26, an Adnyamathanha and Barngarla woman from the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, the first on her father’s side of the family to graduate from high school, is Australia’s first Aboriginal Rhodes scholar. She has a measured way with words.

“Being the first of our mob to come to Oxford is not so much a class thing, it’s about a way of looking at the history of Australia.” She thinks before she continues. “From a young age our history didn’t quite mesh with the way that we were taught in school. Most Aboriginal people will have some kind of critical edge, but it’s only through opportunities like this that we get to voice them.”

We stand among the jumble of anthropological artefacts in Oxford’s Pitt Rivers ethnographic museum, where Richards undertakes part of her research. A North American totem pole soars to the rafters, a boomerang sits framed inside a polished glass cabinet – and she poses patiently for photographs.

For Richards, the hundred-year-old scholarship, broadly accepted as the world’s most prestigious award for young academics, presented a dilemma: how to weigh the association with its eponym, Cecil Rhodes, – who proclaimed the British as “the first race in the world” and who imbibed the sort of imperial racism that was used to justify brutality

against Aboriginal people in 19th-century Australia – against the academic opportunity on offer. Richards decided to speak to Rhodes scholars from South Africa and Zimbabwe, where Rhodes had presided as prime minister of the Cape Colony.

“They said: ‘Yes it’s horrible what he did, but we have to work with what we have today.’ I don’t think I’m proud of the scholarship because of who Rhodes is, I’m just proud of the people that I’m with.”

She recounts in vivid detail the arduous interview process: cocktails with the governor-general at Australia House, dinner in wood-panelled rooms, and then a day of interviews. The pomp associated with the Rhodes prepared many of Australia’s most noted politicians for life in Canberra. Bob Hawke, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull are all past recipients.

An anthropologist by training, Richards is immersed in rigorous postgraduate research – using the watercolour paintings of British artist John Skinner Prout from the mid-19th century, to re-interpret depictions of Aboriginal people in Tasmania. The research is preparation for an exhibition at the National Museum of Australia in 2015.

“They had very difficult lives,” she says, understated again.

“So the opportunity to show the artworks in Australia will mean getting to know these people as individuals and not just as stereotypical symbols of Aboriginals, for Tasmanian Aboriginal people to really assert their identity”

Previously, those in the collection, created after the black war in Tasmania, were interpreted by historians as ethnographic portraiture and placed in two categories, those who were freedom fighters and those who were passive. “In fact,” says Richards, “they were both, and they were more than that too.”

And so it is that Oxford’s first Aboriginal Rhodes scholar is engaged in a critical revision of some of Australia’s oldest colonial artworks.

Since 2010 the university has seen a relative influx of Aboriginal students, a welcome contrast to recent press

First Indigenous Australian students at Oxford look to rewrite history

Aboriginal Australian students (left to right) Rebecca Richards, Christian Thompson and Paul Gray at Oxford. Photograph: Sean Smith/Guardian

Rebecca Richards is Australia’s first Aboriginal Rhodes scholar. Photograph: Sean Smith/Guardian

6 Youth Workers’ Newsletter | Issue 15, September 2013

reports that labelled the university as “institutionally biased” after statistics revealed that white undergraduate applicants were up to twice as likely to get a place on the most competitive courses. All of Oxford’s Aboriginal students are in some way involved in a project of redefinition, designed to help communities back home.

At Trinity College I visit 34-year-old Christian Thompson, who along with Paul Gray, 28, is studying under the Charlie Perkins scholarship (named after the first Indigenous person to graduate from university in Australia, just 48 years ago), and were the first Aboriginal students to go to Oxford in its nine centuries of existence.

We sit in the dining hall. On any other day the art on the walls would seep into the background. But, for the first time in the hall’s near 400-year history, ageing oil portraits of past college grandees are gone, replaced with Thompson’s own portrait photography. It’s a broad collection of his work that deals with identity, race and history. The rehanging may have been a moment in Oxford’s parochial history, but Thompson, who is nearing the end of his art theory PhD, remains aware of the sad truth.

“I think it’s quite a sobering fact that we live in a generation where there can still be ‘firsts’,” says Thompson, a Bidjara man. “It’s difficult. There’s a lot vested in Paul and me. We’re symbolic. And there is a palpable expectation to perform at the highest academic level.”

The pressure was no doubt exacerbated when, around the time of Thompson and Gray’s first semester, the rightwing Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt wrote: “I’m not sure these are the Aboriginal faces you’d expect to be in most need of special race-based help,” directly referencing Thompson’s mixed heritage.

But whether he chooses to acknowledge it or not, Thompson is flying. Like Richards, he spends much of his time at the Pitt Rivers Museum and is working on a set of ethnographic photographic portraits dating from the late 19th century. In a research room inside the museum, Christian flicks through the archive, a foundational set of ethnographic photographs collected by the British anthropologist Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer. He reveals monochrome prints, a mixture of bizarre,

playful set-ups, and more sinister headshots of Aboriginal convicts, bedraggled, squinting into the camera, awaiting execution.

“I’ve deliberately decided not to carry them on my person. It’s really morbid to carry images of deceased ancestors,” says Thompson. “They were collected originally as ethnographic objects of a culture that was meant to die out. The irony is that these collections that are now held all over the world are making us part of a global research movement.”

The university is repatriating copies of the archives to the Aboriginal communities [WARNING: contains photograph] they came from, but Thompson’s role is more abstract. Drawing direct inspiration from images in the collection, he created a new volume of photographic work that turned into a show, We Bury Our Own. It has already toured the world. In the collection, Thompson poses in similarly sepia-

tinged photographs, staring straight to camera, his eyes often concealed. “I was looking at the idea of spiritual repatriation,” he says. “To make these collections part of the contemporary. They’re not just ethnographic tokens of an imperial culture, they’re very much connected to a lived reality. They’re part of our lives.”

Work like this would not be possible but for the proximity to source material that Oxford offers. Another of Oxford’s Aboriginal students, 51-year-old Greg Lehman from north-east Tasmania, a Roberta Sykes scholar completing a master of studies in art history, is using this newfound access to some of Britain’s most famous collections to reinterpret a pivotal piece of Australian art.

The Conciliation, painted in 1840 by British artist Benjamin Duterrau, is regarded as Australia’s first painting of history. Depicting the moment of treaty between a group of Tasmanian Aboriginal people and the district “protector of Aborigines”, Lehman argues that the painting has been interpreted in a “very literal” manner – seen as the first steps towards recognition of Tasmanian Aboriginal people – when there are more brutal subtleties to be uncovered. By referencing William Hogarth’s illustrations for Paradise Lost and Raphael’s cartoons of the gospels – both of which influenced Dutterau – Lehman claims that the positioning and poise of the Aboriginal people in The Conciliation show

Christian Thompson with some of his art work at Oxford. Photograph: Sean Smith/Guardian

Forgiveness of Land by Christian Thompson from the collection We Bury Our Own

Issue 15, September 2013 | Youth Workers’ Newsletter 7

acknowledgements of violence and a sense of foreboding.

At Oxford, the pioneering students meet nearly every week. As Thompson, Gray and Richards sit together on the lush lawns of Trinity college, it’s clear they’ve formed a close bond. Christian pokes fun at Rebecca’s college, Magdalen, notorious for its archaic traditions. “Bec is the first person of colour there for a long time,” he chuckles.

“It’s quite hard to fit in, I guess. Just getting used to things like fish knives, those wine decanters. But you do get used to it, to all the funny dinners and the funny sayings. It’s actually a very nice, very sweet tradition.”

There is no doubt about who heads the group. Kerrie Doyle, sits in her living room at Wolfson college, a blow-up Kangaroo propped against the wall. “Wherever you put a blackfella, they’ll go and look for the other blackfella,” she says. “It’s just how we roll.”

Doyle (or Auntie Kerrie as she’s known), is 55 and studying for an MSc in mental health with a focus on adoption and depression. She didn’t speak English until she was eight. Born on a mission in Alice Springs, she fled with her family to New South Wales. Doyle was the first Aboriginal nurse in her state, the first in her university to graduate as a psychologist, and is now an assistant professor at the University of Canberra. She is forthright in criticising Australia’s record on access to higher education.

“I had to really fight to come here. First of all my university said, ‘Why do you want to go? You’re just an Abo, you’re not going to do any good.’ Then they said, ‘You won’t get in’ … My university has never supported me to go and research an Aboriginal [area]. Because it’s just an Aboriginal thing.”

Doyle’s experience underlines a sobering reality. Indigenous students make up just 1.09% of Australia’s university population (representation in postgraduate courses and in academic staffing is even lower); Indigenous people constitute 2.5% of the national population. Workplace discrimination is common: a report recently published by the National Tertiary Education Union concluded that 71% of Indigenous people employed by Australia’s universities have experienced racial discrimination at work.

26 year-old Krystal Lockwood, a Gumbangerrii and Dhungutti woman from Queensland and another Perkins scholar, is also studying for an MSc in mental health, and is preparing methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of Queensland’s new youth boot camps – recent statistics showed (pdf ) that Aboriginal children were 34 times more likely to have gone through correctional services than non-Aboriginals in the state. Lockwood looks up in awe as Doyle speaks. “Everything that Auntie Kerrie says is true,” she says. “She’s my hero.”

Doyle smiles, taking the praise in her stride. Despite the hardship she’s endured, there’s a solace in the future. Oxford has already funded research trips that Doyle says would be unthinkable in Australia due to the university’s superior

funding and investment in a broader portfolio of academic research. “I think the next generation, especially when the Krystals and the Christians go back, will be a lot different,” she says. “When we say we’ve been to Oxford, we will not go back the same.”

Back at Trinity, and a clock chimes two somewhere in the distance. Christian, Paul and Rebecca, glance at each other and politely remind me they have lectures to attend. They stroll out beneath the college’s bricked gateway, along immaculately kept gravel paths, and file off, each on a different path across the city.

Save the Date 14-15 April 2014

We are holding a two day conference for young people living with disability.

The conference will focus on empowerment, personal leadership,

resilience and choice.

To register your interest in attending the conference, contact Georgie at JFA Purple Orange on (08) 8373 8313 or

email georginae@purpleorange.org.au.

More information will be made available shortly.

facebook.com/JuliaFarrYouth @JuliaFarrYouth

Save the Date 14-15 April 2014

We are holding a two day conference for young people living with disability.

The conference will focus on empowerment, personal leadership,

resilience and choice.

To register your interest in attending the conference, contact Georgie at JFA Purple Orange on (08) 8373 8313 or

email georginae@purpleorange.org.au.

More information will be made available shortly.

facebook.com/JuliaFarrYouth @JuliaFarrYouth

Save the Date 14-15 April 2014

We are holding a two day conference for young people living with disability.

The conference will focus on empowerment, personal leadership,

resilience and choice.

To register your interest in attending the conference, contact Georgie at JFA Purple Orange on (08) 8373 8313 or

email georginae@purpleorange.org.au.

More information will be made available shortly.

facebook.com/JuliaFarrYouth @JuliaFarrYouth

8 Youth Workers’ Newsletter | Issue 15, September 2013

Unfair and unbalanced: misreporting the petrol sniffing ‘scourge’ 9 August 2012, 6.40am AEST

Author - Peter d’Abbs Professor of Substance Misuse Studies, Menzies School of Health Research at Menzies School of Health Research

Disclosure Statement Peter d’Abbs receives funding from Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing.

The Conversation is funded by CSIRO, Melbourne, Monash, RMIT, UTS, UWA, Canberra, CDU, Deakin, Flinders, Griffith, JCU, La Trobe, Massey, Murdoch, Newcastle. QUT, Swinburne, UniSA, USC, USQ, UTAS, UWS and VU.

Once again, petrol sniffing in Indigenous communities is in the headlines. And once again, sadly, the restraint that newspapers normally exercise in reporting drug issues among non-Indigenous Australians has been thrown aside.

A July front page of The Australian showed two young Aboriginal men, both identifiable, one with a hose in his mouth siphoning petrol from a car, the other clutching a soft drink bottle apparently containing petrol.

“The scourge is back”, declared Nicolas Rothwell at the beginning of his accompanying article: “confronting the eye, disturbing the heart, exposing the failure of remote community management in the Northern Territory after five long years of intervention”.

And so on until, in a concluding paragraph, he pronounces:

All that is clear is failure: after millions of dollars, reports, studies and programs, the combined efforts of the commonwealth and NT governments to stop the plague have come to nothing.

What are we to make of this denigrating outburst, this narrative of hopelessness in which Aboriginal petrol sniffers and those aspiring to help them alike are ensnared in delusion, and in which the only one who can really see what is going on is, by implication, the omniscient journalist? What an extraordinary conceit, in several senses of the word.

Rothwell’s article and the photographs appeared the day before the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee commenced two days of hearings in Alice Springs on the Low Aromatic Fuel Bill 2012, which had earlier been introduced into the Senate as a private member’s bill by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert.

The purpose of the bill is to enable the Commonwealth to compel petrol retailers in designated areas to sell Low Aromatic Fuel instead of regular unleaded petrol. (“Low Aromatic Fuel” is the officially preferred term for what up to

now has been more widely known as Opal fuel. The shift signifies a policy commitment to support a particular kind of fuel, regardless of who manufactures it, rather than the particular brand manufactured by BP.)

Most of those appearing before the hearings expressed support for the bill, as did The Australian in an editorial.

As several submissions make clear, however, the reason why Low Aromatic Fuel should be mandated is not because everything that has gone before has failed, as Rothwell claims, but rather because the rollout of Opal fuel to date has been successful in reducing petrol sniffing, and because these successes continue to be undermined by the refusal of some outlets to stock the fuel, and by the reluctance of the Rudd and Gillard governments to compel them to do so.

In 2005 and again in 2008, Gillian Shaw and I were engaged by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing to assess the prevalence of petrol sniffing in Indigenous communities prior to and following the introduction of Opal fuel.

In our initial study we gathered data from 74 communities; the 2008 study examined trends in 20 of these communities located in NT, WA, SA and Queensland. In 17 of the 20 we found a decline in petrol sniffing, attributable at least in part to the introduction of Low Aromatic Fuel.

Overall, the number of current sniffers in the 20 communities fell by 70% from 622 to 187. Because individual communities are identified, the reports themselves have not been released. An executive summary of the 2008 report is, however, here.

We are now engaged in a further follow-up survey of petrol sniffing patterns in 40 Indigenous communities for DoHA. While not at liberty to disclose results to date, we can say they do not support the catastrophic picture conjured by Rothwell. In particular, the community he singled out for attention, Yirrkala in north-eastern Arnhem Land, where petrol sniffing is indeed a serious problem at present, is by no means typical of communities in the NT or elsewhere.

In 2009, the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs conducted an inquiry into petrol sniffing in central Australia, in which it recommended that in the event of continuing resistance by individual retailers to stock Low Aromatic Fuel, the Commonwealth should legislate to compel them to do so or, failing that, state and territory governments take similar steps.

Issue 15, September 2013 | Youth Workers’ Newsletter 9

In the following year, DoHA commissioned the South Australian Centre for Economic Studies to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of mandating supply in designated areas. The authors of the study concluded that over 25 years the benefits of mandating the fuel would exceed costs by $780 million.

Despite these arguments, the Commonwealth Government has continued to baulk at mandating Low Aromatic Fuel, although it has substantially increased budgetary commitments to the rollout of Opal and to other measures under an eight-point plan to combat petrol sniffing.

Whether these latest moves will shift the government’s stance remains to be seen. Even if they do, two notes of caution should be sounded.

First, and this should go without saying, supply reduction is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the prevention of volatile substance misuse; measures to reduce demand are also needed.

Second, most of the discussions about mandating Low Aromatic Fuel have focused on isolated roadhouses in central Australia. In several communities where petrol sniffing continues to cause problems, however, the source of petrol is not a remote roadhouse, but a nearby town, such as Katherine or Nhulunbuy. These towns have several outlets, and the social, economic and political dynamics implicated

in any move to mandate Low Aromatic Fuel are considerably more complex. Legislating in these settings will need to be accompanied by sound community engagement if they are not to generate the kinds of resentment and resistance that, if nothing else, frighten politicians.

In the meantime, is it too much to ask that journalists who report petrol sniffing in Aboriginal communities respect some of the conventions of privacy, use of evidence and balance that we take for granted when other people’s social problems are being aired

DESIDERATA DESIDERATA: (Latin: “desired things”) is a 1927 prose poem by American writer Max Ehrmann.

Goplacidlyamidthenoiseandhaste,andrememberwhatpeacetheremaybeinsilence.

Asfaraspossiblewithoutsurrenderbeongoodtermswithallpersons.Speakyourtruthquietlyandclearly;andlistentoothers,eventhedullandtheignorant;theytoohavetheirstory.

Avoidloudandaggressivepersons,theyarevexationstothespirit.

Ifyoucompareyourselfwithothers,youmaybecomevainandbitter;foralwaystherewillbegreaterandlesserpersonsthanyourself.

Enjoyyourachievementsaswellasyourplans.Keepinterestedinyourowncareer,howeverhumble;itisarealpossessioninthechangingfortunesoftime.

Exercisecautioninyourbusinessaffairs;fortheworldisfulloftrickery.Butletthisnotblindyoutowhatvirtuethereis;manypersonsstriveforhighideals;andeverywherelifeisfullofheroism.

Beyourself.Especially,donotfeignaffection.Neitherbecynicalaboutlove;forinthefaceofallaridityanddisenchantmentitisasperennialasthegrass.

Takekindlythecounseloftheyears,gracefullysurrenderingthethingsofyouth.w

Nurturestrengthofspirittoshieldyouinsuddenmisfortune.Butdonotdistressyourselfwithdarkimaginings.

Manyfearsarebornoffatigueandloneliness.Beyondawholesomediscipline,begentlewithyourself.Youareachildoftheuniverse,nolessthanthetreesandthestars;youhavearighttobehere.Andwhetherornotitiscleartoyou,nodoubttheuniverseisunfoldingasitshould.

ThereforebeatpeacewithGod,whateveryouconceiveHimtobe,andwhateveryourlaborsandaspirations,inthenoisyconfusionoflifekeeppeacewithyoursoul.Withallitssham,drudgery,andbrokendreams,itisstillabeautifulworld.Becheerful.

Strivetobehappy.

Desiderata” (Latin: “desired things”) is a 1927 prose poem by American writer Max Ehrmann. Largely unknown in the author’s lifetime, the text became widely known after its use in a devotional, subsequently being found at Adlai Stevenson’s deathbed in 1965, and after spoken-word recordings in 1971 and 1972.

We Aussie blokes are so good to women!!!

My wife and I walked past a swanky new restaurant last night.

“Did you smell that food, it smelt incredible?” she said.

Being the nice fellow I am, I thought : “Bugger it, I’ll treat her!”

So, we walked past it again!!!

HEHEHE!

10 Youth Workers’ Newsletter | Issue 15, September 2013

Berri Youth GroupName: Kimberly Turner

Age: 21

Likes: Fashion

Dislikes: People who talk behind your back

Ambition (does not have to be work related): To work as a clothing model

Favourite Food: Spicy

Sports I like: Not really interested.

My 3 favourite TV Programs: Anything with comedy

My 3 favourite bands/singers: Rhianna, Kanye West and Prince

A role model who inspires me to do well on the AYAC: Mike and Di Wilson

3 things that concern/worry me: Not finishing High School, getting a job.

How I found out about AYAC: I have been involved in AYAC since it started in the Riverland

What AYAC means to me:

AYAC program is great helps me to get connected.

2 ideas I have to improve things for young people: Finish your schooling.

What makes me angry:

Some personal family matters.

My Birthday: 22 June 1992

My family background: Aboriginal

The quality I like best in a person is: Friendship

The best day I can remember: My 21st birthday

Something special about me: I accept all people as equal

Name: Mike Harris

Location: Berri

Employed by: Ac Care

Family Background: Aboriginal, African, Egyptian & Scottish

Best thing about being a Youth Worker: Seeing young people making progress

Worst thing about being a Youth Worker: Limited funding

Hobbies/Interests: Science fiction movies

Music I like: Most

Music I hate: Rap

Favourite food(s): Asian and Italian

Worst Food(s): Tripe, custard and sago

Birthday: 31 December 1954

Fears: Chronic disease

My 3 heroes: (alive or dead, personal or public figures): Martin Luther King, Fred Hollows, Barack Obama

What I value most in people: Sincere friendship

Something I feel passionate about & why: Equality and opportunity for all. Because there is still a great deal of inequity.

Youth Member Profiles

HAHAHA!APandawalksintoarestaurant.

ThewaitertakesthePanda’sorder.

Whentheorderisready,thewaitertakesittothePanda.

ThePandaeatsthemeal,pullsoutagun,shootsthewaiterandrunsoutoftherestaurant.

TheowneroftherestaurantgoesrunningafterthePanda.

WhentherestaurantownerfinallycatchesuptothePanda,heasks,“Whydidyoushootthewaiter?”

ThePandatellstheownertolookup‘Panda’inthedictionary.

Theownergoesbacktotherestaurantandlooksup‘Panda’inthedictionary.

Under‘Panda’itsays:Eatsshootsandleaves

Issue 15, September 2013 | Youth Workers’ Newsletter 11

Koonibba Beauty WorkshopThe Koonibba Youth centre held a beauty workshop on the 16 April at the Koonibba Youth centre. The young ladies had great hands on opportunity to learn about daily skincare routines and application techniques. They gave each another manicures and learnt how to do many different forms of braids. This workshop was provided by Amy Faklis, a local beautician

Youth Centres

Not So Wired Science - Berri

Right - from the Murray Pioneer August 23, 2013

12 Youth Workers’ Newsletter | Issue 15, September 2013

The Australian Institute of Social Relations is a division of Relationships Australia (SA)

49a Orsmond Street, Hindmarsh SA 5007 Phone: (08) 8245 8100 j.amadio@rasa.org.au

Department for Communities and Social Inclusion Elaine Treloar Phone: (08) 8450 4250 Fax: (08) 8415 4255 elaine.treloar@dcsi.sa.gov.au

Future Contributions Please email any high resolution photos with a brief written explanation to j.amadio@rasa.org.au

Credits Articles & photographs: John Amadio, Mike Harris, Kevina Ware

Editorial: John Amadio Layout and Design: Cass Eddington

TWO DIFFERENT DOCTOR’S OFFICES ...Boy, if this doesn’t hit the nail on the head, I don’t know what does !

Two patients limp into two different medical clinics with the same complaint. Both have trouble walking and appear to require a hip replacement.  The FIRST patient is examined within the hour, is x-rayed the same day and has a time booked for surgery the following week.  The SECOND sees his family doctor after waiting 3 weeks for an appointment, then waits 8 weeks to see a specialist, then gets an x-ray, which isn’t reviewed for  another week and finally has his surgery scheduled in 6 months time.

Why the different treatment for the two patients?  The FIRST is a Golden Retriever.  The SECOND is a Senior Citizen.

 Next time take me to a vet!