16 July 2018
Institute news
The Institute recently celebrated its first NAIDOC week event, which was spearheaded by Indigenous PhD student, Amy Searle on behalf of the Gender Equity and Diversity Committee.
The Welcome to Country was undertaken by Janet Galpin from the Boon Wurrung Foundation on behalf of the Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin Nation.
The event featured Dr Kalinda Griffiths, Scientia Fellow at The Centre for Big Data Research in Health, UNSW; and Honorary Fellow at the Wellbeing and Preventable Chronic Disease Division, Menzies and the University of Sydney.
Kalinda is an Aboriginal epidemiologist born of Yaruwu, Indonesian and Welsh heritage. Her interest in Indigenous health stemmed from witnessing the preventable illness experienced by her immediate and extended family, and she told how those poignant experiences are driving her work in big data and Indigenous health today.
An Aboriginal research officer from our team in Central Australia, Joel Liddle, also presented on his work that is helping us to understand more about the treatment options and impact of the retrovirus, HTLV-1, endemic in Central Australia and parts of SA and WA.
Joel is an Arrernte man who is passionate about improving outcomes for remote Aboriginal people through developing culturally appropriate health literacy materials, utilising primary languages when working with the community and engaging with individuals and communities in a way that provides them agency, knowledge and control over their health and wellbeing.
Kalinda and Joel provided very powerful and moving presentations that touched on resilience, forgiveness, love, science, communication and the journey toward better health.
By sharing some of their personal and professional journey, they helped to build awareness of the importance of Indigenous cultures amongst non-Indigenous staff and students.
The Institute’s Gender Equity and Diversity Committee has also prioritised a list of other actions to continue this important work — one of these is taking steps towards Reconciliation in the form of developing a Reconciliation Action Plan.
A big thank you to Amy, Janet, Kalinda and Joel on this very inspiring and insightful event.