Anglicare - Aboriginal Services

Talk by Sonia Waters, 30 June 2011, St Peter Cathedral, Adelaide.

I pay my respects to the Kaurna people, both past and present. I respect their spiritual relationship with this land that we meet on today.

When I was younger, I was often asked “why do you identify as being Aboriginal, when you can just blend in with all of us, and life would be much easier for you”.

I was also often told “slow down Sonia, improving the quality of life for Aboriginal people is a marathon – not a sprint”.

So why do I identify, why do I do what I do at the pace that I do it? Hopefully, I can explain this in 5 minutes.

3 Generations of women in my family before me, my mother, my grandmother and my great grandmother were all removed from their families and raised in institutions.

My brother was born in 1966 and was at risk of being taken away from my mum because she was Aboriginal and was still a Ward of the State. They were the policies and practices back then. Dad had to get permission to marry my mum because it was a ‘mixed’ marriage. Within a few weeks, she married my father so that she could keep my brother.

I was born in 1968. One year after the 1967 Referendum when policies and practices of removal of children were abolished. Mum told me I was born into freedom – she survived -I have the opportunity to live – and I embraced that.

My great grandmother was from Ooldea in the Southern Pitjantjatjara Lands. Taken away and raised at an institution in Edwardstown. On release, at age 21, Welfare sent her to Mt Gambier, as far away from her homelands as possible, despite repeated requests from the Protector of Aborigines in Koonibba to return her back to her home community. She died at the Unemployment Camp, or what was known as the derelict camp at Port Adelaide. She died of pneumonia, in a tiny tin shanty with the clothes on her back, having never reconnected with her mother or her daughter. During her life, she never had paid employment.

My nana was a member of the Aboriginal Women’s Council – a very powerful group of women who fought for social justice for our people back in the 70’s. They were responsible for the establishment of our own legal, health, education, housing and welfare services. They, worked side by side Dr Duiguid from the Aboriginal Advancement League, to lobby for our people to have access to education, training and employment. She never had paid employment either. My nana reconnected with all of her children, one as late as 3 years before she died.

My mum, having been in-and-out of the foster care placements, and having a lot of contact with the justice system went on to become an Aboriginal Education Worker, a Youth Worker and a Street Youth Worker. Fighting to keep our kids safe, keeping them connected to education, keeping our kids away from the justice system. Mum is the 1st generation in our family to have paid employment.

I was born into social justice, surrounded by strong Aboriginal women. Challenged by them to keep moving forward and action justice for our people. The baton in this sprint has been passed onto me – this is my leg of the journey. So as you can see I cannot deny who I am by the colour of my skin. Collectively, these women before me, and with the contribution that my generation in my family has made, we have given 76 years of our lives to improving the lives of our people – most of this, unpaid.

In 1983 when I was about 14/15 years of age, mum encouraged me to do work experience at the Aboriginal Child Care Agency. I thought it would be ok working with kids (I thought it was Child Care). Day one, I went out with a field officer to retrieve babies that had been abandonded by their Aboriginal mothers. The policies and practices may have been abolished, but sadly the culture, the mindset still existed.

Given the experiences of my family, having been taken away, this became my racetrack on my leg of the journey.

I set out to have more Aboriginal people employed in the health workforce in this state so that no more of our mothers felt they had no other choice but to abandon their babies. This is not our culture. I spent 26 years in Government building the Aboriginal workforce - 16 years building the Aboriginal health workforce in this state. Not only because we needed an Aboriginal workforce, but to give our people access to jobs, to paid employment! I know the difference that having an income can make to the lives of our people.

When I started in the health system, we had no Aboriginal doctors, and only 4 identified Aboriginal nurses. In 1999, 12 years ago, we had never graduated an Aboriginal student in Medicine at any one of our universities in this state. We had no midwives. I know the health workforce is not all about Doctors and Nurses, but when you don’t have any, it becomes that. Through changes than I influenced in the University Sector, in the health sector and through the introduction of a range of supports for Aboriginal students including nationwide Scholarships, we now have graduated about 13 Doctors in this state, and over 100 Nurses (enrolled and registered), including Midwives.

I’ve been in Anglicare now for a blink of time. I am so at peace with my decision to leave Government and join the Anglicare family. We have a shared interest and shared values. We want to contribute to improving the quality of life of our people here in South Australia. And I wanted to be part of that.

In my short time here, I discovered a group of women – the Stolen Sisters they call themselves. They’ve been meeting under different banners now for about 7 years at one of our Anglicare sites. Given my families history again, I feel I was sent to these women. They immediately connected with me…they knew my Nana and my Mum from the institutions.

They are an amazing support for one another and a power of strength and a wealth of knowledge. I sat, listened, I know my place. They said they had some big requests of me. In the big picture of things, these were small. They wanted to go to the Apology Breakfast – they’ve never been invited, they want to go to our NAIDOC Ball – they helped start this, but can’t afford to go, they want to be connected into the broader social life of our community. These are not big asks. We’ve made that happen and we’ll continue to support these amazing women in a way that maintains their dignity and pride and supports them to age positively and improves their quality of life.

These are little examples of where my history, my family’s journey, the responsibilities in the baton that was passed down to me from the women before me, and how it shapes who I am and what I do with the urgency that I do it. I couldn’t have done this alone, people partnered with me, by putting their hand on my baton and helped me to achieve the things I have achieved in my short time in Aboriginal Affairs.

In closing, I just want to say four things.

Firstly, I don’t see myself as being a leader, but if being a leader is about passion and not position, then I guess I am one.

Secondly, if we don’t address Aboriginal inequalities with haste, with urgency, the gulf, the life expectancy gap will become wider. It is a sprint!

Thirdly…we all know the saying that our children will be the judges of our parenting. We also know that the environmental footprint that we leave today, is inherited by our future generations, our children, our grandchildren. But so too is the social footprint we leave.

Our future generations will not measure our social footprint on the size it ‘is’ but rather the size it ‘ought’ to have been.

Anglicare approaches its work from a prophetic viewpoint. We care about the size of our social footprint that we are leaving – I’m glad I’m here and want to make my contribution to the size of the social footprint that I leave for my future generations.

And finally, I inherited a social footprint that ought to have been much bigger. So I ask you to reach out and put your hand on my baton, join me in race to improve life outcomes for my people, in the spirit of reconciliation and to achieve our vision in Anglicare of justice, respect and fullness of life for all.

Thank you