The reality of aboriginal groups is ?sad and regrettable?
Two members of an organisation that assists indigenous Australians in Mount Druitt, a suburb of Sydney, met with the Lavalla200> community to seek new ways of collaborating together.
Mia Jackson, an aborigine herself, and Sister Naomi Smith, a non-indigenous from Australia and director of the Baabayn Aboriginal corporation, gathered with the Lavalla200> community – Argelia Hernández Mendoza, Rodrigo Gris Castro, Br Jonnel Sisneros and Br Lawrie McCane – on Feb. 1.
The Lavalla200> community meets with aborigine children and youth every Tuesday to help them with their school work. The community also offers aborigines transportation to their workplace, as well as help in house chores such as cleaning, painting and gardening.
“The reason for the visit was to strengthen our friendship, unite our talents and share our ideas and projects to help the youth of Mount Druitt,” said Rodrigo Gris Castro, one of the four members of the Mount Druitt Lavalla200> community.
“The reality of aboriginal groups in Australia is sad and regrettable,” he told the general house communications office on Feb. 14.
Rodrigo underscored that “it is important and necessary for us that our Lavalla200> community in Mount Druitt has a spirit of family and community with the Baabayn Aboriginal group.”
“We want to continue with our great friendship and respect towards them and it is fundamental to listen to their stories, their problems and their needs,” he continued.
The word “aborigine” means “the first” or “the first known” and, according to Rodrigo, Australia could easily be the home of the first inhabitants of the Earth.
The aborigines were in Australia about 60,000 years ago when the English first landed in 1770.
From 300,000 to 750,000 aborigines inhabited the continent, but in 1911 (123 years after the first English settlements), there were only 31,000 aborigines left.
The British declared that Australia was terra nullius, that is, without human inhabitants, and thus justified the dispossession of indigenous lands and the looting of the continent. They snatched the fertile land and threw the aborigines into the interior arid areas.
According to Rodrigo, today “unfortunately, many of the old problems are still real. Indigenous Australian communities have serious health and economic deficiencies and social indicators place them in lower positions in terms of health, education, employment, poverty and crime.”