Changing Perceptions of Disadvantage - A Multi-cultural Both-ways Exchange Program

The goal of Indigenous children living on a community in the Tiwi Islands is neither to get an education nor to be employed – it is to get the dole and remain trapped in a lifestyle of poverty and disadvantage. There is no notional idea of breaking this cycle – more a resignation of its inevitability – the consequence being a continuation of the less than acceptable educational, health, social and demographic indicators for these children. Evidence clearly demonstrates that “being poor and unemployed statistically lowers self-esteem and increases illness, death and the likelihood of arrest and imprisonment just as poor health and limited educational achievements affect employability”. The current paper articulates some of the issues we identified when working with Indigenous people and proposes one option to challenge the status quo using an innovative, multi-cultural, both-ways program of community development.