Where do you start when it comes to addressing indigenous disadvantage; educational disadvantage, homelessness, chronic ill-health, drug and alcohol abuse?
Each of these problems presents its own challenges, yet we waste time, money and energy attacking the collective problem in a piecemeal fashion. What if there was a way of tackling them together, in a joint effort to ‘close the gap’?
Often when we see a problem, we immediately look for someone to blame.
Recently Cyclone Lam devastated large areas of Arnhem Land, resulting in much battered infrastructure in need of restoration. We can’t blame the cyclone itself. Instead, the fragmented way we approach the problem of addressing the needs of the locals is more the issue.
Recently, when I returned to Alice Springs, I was struck by the very evident crisis of homelessness. The front page of the Centralian Advocate on 24 February trumpeted: 'Empty Homes: Waiting list … over 600 with 114 dwellings vacant'. The 600 on the list can expect to wait six years for a three bedroom home.
Aimlessness is just as worrying. As I drive around the streets of Larapinta on a weekday morning, I see many children and youths strolling towards the Corner Store. It is obvious that they have nothing more meaningful to head for on a week day morning.
I am not the first person to observe these things. I know that there are numerous people in the town, both in the community services sector and in the government, who are aware of these problems.
I worked for many years in an organisation that provides housing, employment and ancillary services to Aboriginal people in the town and I know of the energy and effort made by these staff and by the good people in the Territory Housing Department. Yet the predicament remains and despite the policies of all governments and parties things have, from appearances, not improved.
Perhaps the key lies in the lack of work or engagement of so many Aboriginal people in purposeful, meaningful daily activity – be it employment, education or training – and the number of empty public dwellings in the same vicinity lends a clue to the deep malaise in the Centre.
Youth Plus is an extension of Edmund Rice Australia that was first established in Queensland. It opened St Joseph’s Flexible Learning Centre in Alice Springs three years ago. ‘Flexis’ are designed to re-connect disengaged students back to schooling. Across Australia, these students are regarded