Community Engagement and Working with Children and Aboriginal People

This essay focuses on community engagement and working with children and Aboriginal people in Australia. It discusses the socio-political lives of indigenous people, the impact on children, and the importance of community support. The essay also highlights the challenges faced by community service groups and the initiatives taken to uplift the conditions of indigenous Australians.

Running Head: COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND WORK
Topic- Essay on community engagement and working with children and aboriginal people
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“Give your hands to serve and your heart to love”- Mother Teresa
I strongly believe that the purpose of human life is to be compassionate in serving others
and every individual should have the will power to help others in their need. A life lived in the
service of helping others is worth living (Altman et al. 2018). Because at the end of the day it is
not the achievement of yours that counts but what matters is- what you have given back, who
you have lifted up and whose living you have made better. In this regard community engagement
plays a crucial role in helping others because small acts when multiplied by millions of people as
helping hands can transform the world and make it a better place of living for all (Altman 2018).
Being an active member of a community work has taught me the most important lesson of life
that working with others and working for others can only create something from nothing and it is
what life is all about.
Here in this essay I will focus on community engagement and working with children and
aboriginal people in Australia. But before that a brief history of the socio-political lives of the
people need to be understood. We all know the conditions of indigenous children and indigenous
people, specially the Torren strait indigens and Aboriginals. There is a heaven-hell racial gap
among the White Australians and the Black Aboriginals (Bodkin-Andrews & Carlson 2016). The
children specially the ‘stolen generation’ children are the worst affected by some Governmental
policies of eradicating racism (Dudgeon & Hirvonen 2014). The conditions of the indigenous
people were worse since 1906 and till now the situation has not improved considerably. Though
the Government has become much reluctant about their sufferings and in 2007 a public apology
was also granted for (Cuthbert & Quartly 2013). But the mixed-decent children or the half-
castes, or the quadroons, or the octoroons are still considered as derogatory to indigenous
Australians and are threatening the prevailing cultural heritage in the country (Gee et al. 2014).

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The guardianship power over the aboriginals have left them nowhere and their existence is being
threatened. The conditions of the people, specifically the parents of the ‘stolen generation’
people are even worse and their presence is under threat and the whole cultural stability of the
indigenous ethnic groups is suffering badly (Hamilton 2017). The impacts of child removal
policy caused huge to both the indigenous children and the people thereupon. So, it is high time
they need to be cared of and emotionally supported so that their living in the country becomes a
worth living.
Considering the social lives of the children and people it is important to mention that the
taken away children at their early ages impacted their emotional stability profoundly (Lohoar et
al. 2014). A deeper impact on their health is also noticeable. Most children are victims of social
abuse, negligence, sexual exploitations, malnutrition and deprived social status. Children were
found to suffer from depression, anxiety, trauma, psychological instability and other long-term
health issues (Muller 2014). Some are even forced to commit suicide as a result of unbearable
suffering. The indigenous people also suffered from depression and fear of losing. Alcoholism
increased among the people and their living standards fall considerably (Tatz 2017). The White
Australians include the black children in their families, but they are never provided the position
of other children like their own children. An invisible line of demarcation was always there.
Keeping a note of their conditions of deprivation I really cannot just sit ideal and I wanted to
provide my bit of support for them and decided to be an active part of such community like
TEAR, KARI and World Vision Australia that supports the First peoples of Australia, the
Indigenous Australians. I decided to be a part to the TEAR Australia which mainly provide
support to Aboriginal and Torren strait Islander peoples. The community is engaged to support
education, health, food and living, water and sanitation, community building, emergency

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responses and thus empowers the Aboriginal Australians (TEAR 2019). Such communities want
young generations like us to come forward and support them in their initiative to achieve
ultimate success. So, I joined them as a volunteer.
In this section I want to reflect on the type of community engagement I have been
working with and how passionate I am in working with them in future as well. Proper planning
and delivering the right service to the Aboriginal people is quite complex for community support
practitioners like us. The deep-rooted nature of the social problems is not easy to solve and
approaches that considers all of historical, communal, social, economic, political, family and
individual factors need to be undertaken (Taylor 2018). Different cultural background increases
the heterogeneity of issues and community segregation becomes really difficult (Robertson &
McDonald 2011). The current issues faced by indigenous Australians are dispossession,
marginalization, racism, cultural assimilation and past policy legacy of forced children removal
(Taylor 2018). The end results are increased poverty, unemployment, communal violence and
substance abuse. The indigenous children are negatively impacted by poor health conditions,
social abuses and decreased educational support (Terszak 2015). The community supports face a
number of difficulties in their operations like inappropriate infrastructure, hindrances in logistics
supply, increased workloads, low remuneration and increased staff turnouts (Tomyn et al. 2013).
The Indigenous reform agenda by the Council of Australian Government (COAG) has
highlighted the issues and has taken the ‘Closing the Gap’ initiative (Short 2016). Here six major
areas are considered namely child mortality, life expectancy, early children education access,
numeracy and literacy, and economic participation. Based on the above criteria, the community
service groups adopt a number of effective working principles like involvement of communal
members, identifying needs, utilization of existing services, networks and resources, balancing

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the talking followed by ultimate closing of the service (Burford 2017). Consultation and
implementation both are balanced so that the service ensured is culturally competent and the
indigenous communities are benefitted to the maximum level (Gee et al. 2014). In TERA
partnership is emphasized upon to support holistic development of the backward peoples. Local
Christian development organizations and charitable trustees are considered for partnerships and
positive change is thus catalyzed. It is also collaborated with the Indigenous Healing Foundation,
the national Aboriginal and Torren Strait Islanders Organization, that focus on stolen children
and aims ‘to grow our children strong’ (Lohoar et al. 2014). Cultural upliftment is supported by
providing continuous training and community healing information. I am an active part of the
program called Development that Works where good development practices is explored and are
included in community service works. Biblical prospective is emphasized upon where we ensure
that our work is for ‘good purpose’ only and has no bad intention or harm causal tendency. The
integral mission of the community is to uplift the conditions of the backward people in the
country and so the people are made aware of the activates for change before-hand so that the
people understands our real motive of doing good only (Robertson & McDonald 2011).
To end up the discussion here, it is quite evident that in order to have a worldly
tranquility it should be ensured that every child grows up happy. The kinship of stolen generation
children should be eliminated and this cruelty in the name of racial discrimination should be
stopped to the earliest so that the future generation is secured and the ethnicity of the Torren
strait islanders remain unaffected (Short 2016). The children are the future of the nation and the
country should support them the way they are accustomed to and not in a way that cause them
lose their very existence in this materialistic world. There should not be any white superior and
black inferior demarcation because at the end of the day we all smile in the same language.

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Power of money and force should not be emphasized but the power of spirit should be
encouraged so that people became aware of the reason of their creation and leave racial fights
behind (Muller 2014). And the very theory of existence mentions that every little thing on Earth
has a purpose and we humans should try our level best to support this very essence of existence.
And finally, I urge all the young generations to be a part of such a noble cause so that the true
meaning of freedom and happiness is understood by the indigenous people. Afterall, the more we
help others, even after knowing the fact that they cannot help us back, the more we will love and
enjoy the life we are living in.

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References
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Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, College
of Arts & Social Sciences, The Australian National University.
Altman, J., Biddle, N. and Hunter, B., 2018. How realistic are the prospects for'closing the gaps'
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Economic Policy Research (CAEPR), The Australian National University.
Bodkin-Andrews, G. and Carlson, B., 2016. The legacy of racism and Indigenous Australian
identity within education. Race Ethnicity and Education, 19(4), pp.784-807.
Burford, G., 2017. Family group conferencing: New directions in community-centered child and
family practice. 1st ed. New York: Routledge.
Cuthbert, D. and Quartly, M., 2013. Forced child removal and the politics of national apologies
in Australia. American Indian Quarterly, 37(1-2), pp.178-202.
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Terszak, M., 2015. Orphaned by the colour of my skin: A stolen generation story. 5th ed. London:
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