Indigenous Community and Assessment

This article explores the unique culture and heritage of Sydney's indigenous community and the challenges they face. It discusses the initiatives taken by the Australian government and NGOs to preserve their culture and promote their well-being. The article also highlights the importance of preserving their language and traditions.

Running head: INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY AND ASSESSMENT
Indigenous Community and Assessment
Name of the Student:
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Author Note:

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Sydney’s unique culture of indigenous community is rooted in thousand of years’
heritage and the fact that people have continued to preserve the practice. Australian government
has taken a number of initiatives previously to preserve the culture of Torres Strait Islander The
tourism sector is also concentrated on promoting partly the culture of aboriginal people, for
instance Aboriginal Blue Mountains Walkabout (Battiste, 2016). The journey is educational in
nature and just an hour drive from Sydney which serves the purpose of protecting the Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander. From recent studies and literature of Australia, scholars have deducted
the amount of trama that has been impregnated within the community. Some of the immediate
reasons for the feeling of disorientation among the people have been detachment from their own
community and family members, cultural shock due to separation from their own culture and
assemblage into an alien one. A large part of Sydney’s culture and history is predominated by the
ethically and culturally unique Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islander people who came
from the islands of Torres Strait. They are quintessentially nomadic in nature and they carved out
their land guided by the spirit of their ancestors. A formal representation of the culture and
idiosyncrasies of their culture can be assembled from literature, folk songs, dance, poetry, drama
that shapes the aboriginal life and culture. Currently, the aboriginal population sums up to
649,200 people with around 25.5 percent of NT population as claimed by government data
(Fisher & McDonald, 2016).

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The students of folk literature dispersed all over the world know in-depth about the
spirituality of these people, who has striven for ages to spiritually connect with the land they are
inhabiting. According to folk stories, they simply did not occupy the land, but were an essential
part of the same, they belonged to the land, protecting and preserving it in their own ways.
However, the predominant occupations amongst these people were fishery, hunting and farming.
As it is with the transient nature of culture and practices, the lifestyle went through turbulent
times because of the arrival of the European settlers who brought along with them their own set
of beliefs and traditions which were a direct threat to the age old practices and cultural practices
of the aborigines.
Figure: Aboriginal Community
Figure: Tenets of Indigenous Culture

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This set them against a different cultural backdrop which made them the ‘other’, a
culturally inferior ad primitive set of tribes in front of the white skin European settlers.
Colonization brought along with them a direct threat to the existence of these islanders as the
colonial society was largely intolerant to the proverbial ‘low-class’ aboriginal community. These
gradually pushed them towards different strata of society, where they were dominated by the all
pervasive culture and norms of their superior European colonizers. This led to a long period of
denial on the part of the European community towards the aborigines, followed by cultural an
economic exclusion. Consequently, the aboriginal clique was forced to relocate and follow a
different set of cultural practice and linguistic.
Although here were resistance from their
part towards their colonial settlers and planned for
widespread protests in order to shelter their culture. As far as history is concerned, they had
planned and implemented their planning by disrupting stations, killing farm laborers hailing from
the colonial and dominant England and damaging their livestock. Verbal and physical abuse was
also prevalent in their mode of protest. There are a number of diaries and journals chronicling the
lifestyle of the indigenous which documents how in 1897, the whole of Torres Strait Island was
brought under the annexation of Queensland which although endeavored to protect the interests
of the community also provided them with alienation from the land, subordinated them to the
Figure: Children of Indigenous Community

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doctrines and tenets of Christianity and dictated their life through the implementation of
Queensland Aboriginal Protection Act.
In the year 1937, the Commonwealth Government conveyed through a conference that he
Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders should be ingratiated within the wider population and
culture. The final segregation and disorientation came when the children of these people were
snatched away from them to be placed in training homes and were hired as laborers or domestic
servants (Gausia et al., 2015). One of the pioneers who took the initiative to implant them within
the mainstream culture and ensure the well-being of the entire community is Tom Calma, it was
due to his applauding sense of social justice that he protested against the degrading state of
health prevailing in the community due to lack of action on the art of the county. He championed
for the Aboriginal health services in order to steer the community towards a part of enrichment
and development. Today, the tourism sector is enriched by the depth of art and culture that is left
Figure: Distribution of Indigenous community

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behind by the aboriginal community, social justice practitioners today envision for a complete
cultural immersion within the community, which will help the younger generation recognize and
appreciate the writers, dancers, film-makers and musicians hailing from this community which
prodigious skills.
One of the core concerns of today is the slow erosion of the traditional aboriginal
languages that have witnessed a total exhaustion due to the lack of consciousness within the
mainstream culture. Around 12 percent of the indigenous population is speaking their native
language where the majority is more fluent in English (Reyhner, 2015). However, the
government today has ruled out the usage of derogatory or offensive names used previously to
indicate the aborigines, for instance half-caste or half blood. The terms through which they can
be addressed are ‘First Australian’, ‘Aboriginal Person’ and ‘Torres Strait Islander’ person.
Figure: The First Australians

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Here are some of the steps that NGO workers are planning to incorporate within the society
in order to promote the well-being of the community are-
1. Creating awareness among the wider population through the help of social media.
2. Allocating team in order to ensure multi-disciplinary care of the indigenous community.
3. Ensuring that the community people are not getting deprived of basic care like dental
care, counselling and social care. As a result of their good work, only 22 percent of the
population has reported ill health where 43 percent of them have claimed to have access
to healthcare clinics and possess knowledge about maintaining a complete healthcare
regimen (Clifford et al., 2015).
Figure: Culture and Practices of Aboriginal people

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4. Recognizing and promoting the traditional culture and values of the indigenous
community of Sydney.
The cultural protocols and maxims as set in RACGP strives to ensure among the mass a
sense of respect and dignity towards the indigenous can (Collins et al., 2017). The students of
different universities have also created and promoted for a number of cultural programs and
activities to convey the tenets of aboriginal culture to the wider community and most
importantly. The study of the aboriginal flag is an important part in respecting and recognizing
the community. The flag has the accumulation of three different colors, red which represents the
earth, red ochre and spiritual kinship to the land. Black which represents the Aboriginal people
Figure: Culture and history of Indigenous People

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of Australia and the yellow is representative of the giver and protector of the realm of the living,
the sun.
Figure: Effects of Colonial Rule on Indigenous
People

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Personal reflection
During the formation of my report, I came to realize how the culture of indigenous people
of Australia was connected with the local community and the sheer necessity of preserving their
language. This is necessary because of the fact that when translated in English, it loses much of
its charm and grandeur. The Australian government should undertake the initiative of
implementing the same. For the completion of my project I took up the book Australian History
Series: Community and Remembrance which provided me with the opportunity to examine the
culture and their origins in-depth. I learnt about their spiritual ties and connections which have
come under threat. It has resulted mainly due to the presence of media and technology and other
such modern practices. Structure of my portfolio was chosen with the goal of displaying the
tradition and practices of the age old community with the depiction of photos so that the readers
grasp the idea of their lifestyle and traditions.

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Reference List:
Battiste, M. (2016). Research Ethics for Chapter Protecting Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage.
Ethical futures in qualitative research: Decolonizing the politics of knowledge, 111.
Clifford, A., McCalman, J., Bainbridge, R., & Tsey, K. (2015). Interventions to improve cultural
competency in health care for Indigenous peoples of Australia, New Zealand, Canada and
the USA: a systematic review. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 27(2),
89-98.
Collins, J., Morrison, M., Basu, P. K., & Krivokapic-Skoko, B. (2017). Indigenous culture and
entrepreneurship in small businesses in Australia. Small Enterprise Research, 24(1), 36-
48.
Fisher, L., & McDonald, G. (2016). From fluent to Culture Warriors: Curatorial trajectories for
Indigenous Australian art overseas. Media International Australia, 158(1), 69-79.
Gausia, K., Thompson, S. C., Nagel, T., Schierhout, G., Matthews, V., & Bailie, R. (2015). Risk
of antenatal psychosocial distress in indigenous women and its management at primary
health care centres in Australia. General hospital psychiatry, 37(4), 335-339.
Hunt, L., Ramjan, L., McDonald, G., Koch, J., Baird, D., & Salamonson, Y. (2015). Nursing
students' perspectives of the health and healthcare issues of Australian Indigenous people.
Nurse education today, 35(3), 461-467.
Light, R. L., & Evans, J. R. (2017). Socialisation, culture and the foundations of expertise in elite
level Indigenous Australian sportsmen. Sport, education and society, 22(7), 852-863.

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Reyhner, J. (Ed.). (2015). Teaching Indigenous students: Honoring place, community, and
culture. University of Oklahoma Press.