Community Engagement and Working with Children and Aboriginal People

Running Head: COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND WORK
Topic- Essay on community engagement and working with children and aboriginal people
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2COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND WORK
“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).

3COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND WORK
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