Artist and Student Allan Dyason and Frances Barraclough – Program Manager Clinical Education
National Close the Gap Day 2015 (19 March) was held at the Uralba building; the day is nationally recognised and seeks to support equality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia.
Equality encompasses health, housing, quality and quantity of life. There are many events held around the country during this time, and our event was aimed at staff, students, services and community people.
The day consisted of Acknowledgement of Country by Glen Rhodes, traditional dancers by the Deadly Bunarms (Deadly brothers), a series of short speeches/talks about how the programs and efforts are working towards closing the gap. During the event, University of Western Sydney student Allan Dyason painted the Closing the Gap logo onto a large canvas and invited all attendees to sign at the bottom – effectively their pledge towards closing the gap. The painting will hang at the UCRH for all to see.
This included: a Welcome to the UCRH and the day by Aboriginal programs officer Emma Walke, Cath Tarrant of Ngunya Jarjums and Wendy Knight of Foundations Care discussed the work that out of home care services do with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, their families and the difficulties encountered with regards to access to health services.
Sasha Harrington of the Bullinah Solid Mob talked about her work as a part of the Tackling Smoking Healthy Lifestyle and shared her thoughts on the very real existence of racism in our communities. The R U Appy team of mentors attended the day, and we were fortunate to be able to hear from Associate Prof James Bennett-Levy and the team about the work they are doing with communities to support mental health with the use of an application called Stay Strong.
Rajee Henderson spoke about the work she is doing with community, reconciliation actions plans and empowerment of communities by working together.
The speeches were dispersed through lunch and around 50 staff, organisations and community members attended the event, which was a great turnout, and one that we hope to repeat annually.
