Second Term 2008 Completed - WELL!

Josetta, Joanne, Noreen and Jessiah left Brisbane tonight on the 9.00pm flight. They will arrive in Darwin at 1.00am and wait at the airport until 7.30 for the flight back to Nguiu and home.

It has been a good term! Tonight we went to the music night at Indooroopilly Primary School, where they have two school orchestras, two brass bands and two choirs. The head mistress Hillary Bacus was excited to have the Tiwi kids as her guests!

Indooroopilly primary was established in 1875 and many of their teachers have been there for years and years. Contrast with Nguiu where most of the teachers stay for one year and most arrive fresh out of Teacher's College.

It has been said that it takes a couple of years for a new teacher to shake down and be useful in Brisbane and that it takes three times as long for a teacher to be useful in a trans-cultural situation. I do not think it is reasonable to assume that Tiwi kids get equal educational opportunity and if you have seen the wonderful Four Corners program screened this week, you will agree that it wrong to blame the parents if the kids are not busting to get to school each day.

You have to love the Old Testament idea in Proverbs, which I paraphrase: "Well off folk, please don't drink least you for forget your responsibilities, but whatever, make sure the poor man has a drink so he may forget his burdens". The Moral Flogger in us reverse the equation and blame the victim because he drinks and because he does not grasp the the educational opportunities plausibly available.

AFL Lions Great Alastair Lynch was there to support the Tiwi kids, as he has done since this program commenced.

Have a look at the Four Corners program on http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20080616/kimberly/default.htm

If you are free to help fund this project, go to Vinnie's website: https://www.vinnies.org.au/show_appeal.cfm?table=appeals&parentid=0&id=43

Mid Second Term 2008 Everyone Happy!

The AFL aboriginal week was great.

Our three Tiwi girls starred at the Gabba. they are one two and four on the left, with other Aboriginal kids studying in Toowoomba

The AFL is achieving more than the education system. Three Tiwi kids are playing top level AFL. No Tiwi has made it through School to university.

You can't play top level AFL without dedication, genius and hard work.

Several years back Robert Walls coach of Brisbane would ring the Bathurst Island priest, despairing at getting a sophisticated playing instruction through to a Tiwi kid.

AFL have broken through, after forty years of bringing Tiwi kids down the Education systems have not succeeded.

Downlands enthusiastically welcomes the TAFE initiative for Josetta. If we can get career training underway while a kids is still at school, we will break through the lead ceiling and crack a job that routinely goes to a non Tiwi.

Noel Pearson was talking to Vinnies Kenmore people last week. His message is that the kids have to be encouraged into the elite streams. He described how he only survived through University because he had a Melbourne Jewish Lawyer who believed in him and kept encouraging him to plug on.

We are talking with Christian Brothers Nudgee and Marist Brothers Ashgrove hoping to get other boys started down here next.

If you want to see something of the conditions on the island, see the 4 Corners program Educating Kimberley streamed from the ABC 4 Corners website on: http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/special_eds/20080616/kimberly/default.htm

If you are free to help fund this project, go to Vinnie's website: https://www.vinnies.org.au/show_appeal.cfm?table=appeals&parentid=0&id=43