Whitney once famously sang, (before rehab presumably), “I believe the children are our future”. Well, I believe the children are the present. I’m certainly not alone in believing that how we look after our children is one of the central indicators of the health of our society. Not just because they’ll grow up to be adults one day, but because of who they are right now. I mean, let’s face it, my dreams for our children aren’t even all that grand – adequate nutrition, basic literacy and numeracy, safety from abuse, neglect and easily preventable disease. Of course, this has a bearing on the choices available to these children in the future, but mainly I just dream of kids being ok right now.
If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably pretty supportive of this idea. However, they do say that most of the evil in the world is thought up by a couple of evil-doers and done by a lot of do-gooders. So with all our good intentions, it seems to make sense to take a little time out and consider what we, as an organisation, have been doing in Roebourne or Liverpool and what we hope to achieve by working with those communities.
In thinking about this, a couple of concepts came to mind. If you can bear with me, I think they’ll allow me to talk about some of the things I’ve been thinking.
Firstly, let’s consider some of the concepts of systemic theorists. These guys say that when thinking about things, it’s good to think about the whole, not just the parts of the system. The system can be as simple as a basic circuit board or as complex as a remote Indigenous community. Because the parts interact with each other, looking at each part in isolation will not give you a good understanding of what’s really going on.
So, let’s start with a “reinforcing circle”. This is simply a system where change happens. This can be either a “vicious cycle” or a “virtuous cycle”. Usually, intervention programmes try to change vicious cycles into virtuous ones. One example might be a relatively poor community such as the ones CuriousWorks has been working in. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that there is a vicious cycle in that community which includes being financially stressed, which leads to substance abuse, which leads to unemployment and low income as well as high expenditure on alcohol/drugs. This, of course, leads to more financial stress and so on.
Now it would seem simple in this system to intervene by injecting a large sum of cash into the system, decreasing financial stress which should lead to less substance abuse, leading to less expenditure and a chance to be employed and earn an income, further reducing financial stress.
But it’s never simple, is it? And actually what is more likely to happen is that this change process is limited by a hidden “balancing circle”.
A “balancing circle” is a system that seeks to maintain the status quo. In this case, the balancing circle may work a bit like this: The extra injection of cash actually increases the substance abuse problem in the community because now the community members have greater means with which to buy alcohol/drugs. This means that whatever temporary gains were made by the emergency cash donation quickly disappear and we are back to the place where we started.
But why? What is it that is limiting the growth of our well-intentioned intervention? The more complex the system, the more factors are probably involved in holding the status quo in place. However, it’s important to stop to consider what these factors might be, because without removing them, any help we intend to give, will be doomed to failure.
Many limits to growth have suggested by analysts far more knowledgeable than I, such as high rates of unemployment, low literacy rates and poor physical health. But I want to suggest a different kind of possibility. One that is hard to measure on paper but is perhaps more powerful than all these factors and explains why attempts to address employment, literacy and health are still so unsuccessful in these communities.
Could it be, that the limit to growth in these communities is the lack of voice to tell their own stories? What an artsy, hippie thing to say…. Typical of that community theatre rhetoric that doesn’t really mean anything.
Actually, we know that people’s state of mind makes a difference. Even the most ancient of war generals knew it. They called it “morale”. They knew that what fighting men believed about themselves, their purpose and their hopes of success was vital in any military campaign. In modern times, even in our privileged country, 42 people a week are so overcome by the “purely psychological” phenomena of hopelessness and helplessness that they take their own life. What people believe about themselves, the stories they own about themselves and their past inform their present quality of life and their actions in the future.
So what kind of stories have the Indigenous communities of Australia been told? Well, let’s not even consider their past experiences for a moment. Let’s look only at the present. Right now, in NSW, you are six times more likely to be told by the state that you are unfit to parent than non-Indigenous parents. In Macquarie Fields, not far from Liverpool, nearly one third of Indigenous residents are unemployed and all over the country you are likely to die 7 years earlier than non-Indigenous Australians.
The psychologist, Beck, a pioneer in depression research, noted that the two most prominent features of the mood disorder were hopelessness and helplessness. I wonder how many more statistics we could quote that would tell a story of Indigenous communities as both helpless and hopeless.
Let’s then consider a different story. One told by a 13 year old girl called Shannen Koostachin. Shannen is in Year 8 in Attawapiskat School, a rural Indigenous school in remote Canada. Some years ago, the school had a diesel spill all over its playground which made the school unusable. So Shannen goes to school in a demountable. Something that is perhaps not so uncommon in Australia. Only, in Attawapiskat, it’s 40ºC below freezing. Every year the grade 8 students organise the campaign for a new school and this year Shannen went to Ottawa to meet with the federal Minister for Indian Affairs. The minister told Shannen and her supporters that they were a shining example and an inspiration for their excellent work. He then told them that their government, unfortunately, did not have the money to build Attawapiskat a new school. After listening politely, Shannen simply said to the Minister, “I don’t believe you” and walked out of the meeting.
The campaign for Attawapiskat school has become huge in Canada. There were over 150 local and national news articles written and educators and human rights professionals offered their support. In an amazing example of what First Nations campaigner, Cindy Blackstock, calls “reconciliation”, hundreds of school children of all races write letters of support. This year Shannen was nominated for the Children’s Peace Prize.
What makes this story so inspiring? It is certainly not that the children have got a new school – they are still waiting. What is it then?
Is it that a 13-year-old girl was able to look at the story of herself and her worth that was being offered to her by a man far above her in wealth, power and education, and say simply……. “I don’t believe you”?
Perhaps when I invest in CuriousWorks, I invest in that.
Who knows what stories the kids of Liverpool and Roebourne may tell? Part of giving them a voice is that we have no control over what they may say. Perhaps they will be stories of hopelessness, trauma or even vicious anger. Perhaps there will also be stories in there of normality, ambitions and contentment. But whatever it is they have to say, I hope somehow telling their own stories will help them to look at the old, limiting, problem-saturated stories that have been told to them in the eye…. and that they might say to them, “I don’t believe you”.
Perhaps then, our best of intentions will be realised.
And we will see change.
——
Rebecca Sng is the current chair of CuriousWorks’ Board. She is a clinical psychologist working with at-risk young people.
I must say this is a great article i enjoyed reading it keep the good work
Great post Snug
I liked your article as it is very heartfelt. I have also done research on independent media, community media, indigenous media, etc. Shakthi knows me from Ngarda Tv and Radio here in Roebourne. All I can contest to this article is that even though SOMETIMES people in remote, “poor” (I use this term from your article, but with caution because poverty is a very complex theme in itself) areas DO have the means to tell their story (to the greater public, or “others”) maybe they’re just not really that interested in doing so. That does not mean that they don’t derive immense pleasure and satisfaction from the courses, workshops, and activities provided by organizations like CuriousWorks. Of course these are very positive for the children, youngsters, elders, whoever participates. From my experience here I have not observed much effort in continuing these sorts of activities independently after the facilitators of the workshops have departed. And here they DO have the means, they have the local TV station, where they can come and produce their own programs, many have their own video cameras. I am not saying that providing media for people to tell their own stories is useless, what I am saying is that similar to all the other efforts you mentioned: money, employment programs, health programs, anti alcohol and drug abuse programs, educational programs… media capacitation is the answer for some, but does not resolve the situation for the community as a whole. So then I ask… is there really something to “change”? Maybe people would be content with how things are, and unhappiness is created by others telling them their lifestyle is inadequate? I just mention this because you called your article “the road to hell”. Sure, Roebourne is as hot as hell, but if you look up at the skies at dawn or dusk you are truly looking at heaven.
I must emphasize that all these programs are positive and should continue as they are a joy and sometimes a lifeline, for some people: for those who are interested in participating. Media, be it mainstream commercial, state/public or community media, is not a “truthful” description of the life and stories of anyone, it is how the artist, reporter, production manager, or indigenous person behind the camera interprets and understands the story or issue. What media capacitation provides is a platform through which people – those who would like to- can use to produce a program.
You raise a bunch of interesting points Maria Rosa….. Before I talk about that, I just wanted to say that I’m mildly panicked that anyone would think I was referring to Roeburn as hell. Having just come back from two weeks in Laos, I actually just been meditating about how much of the people in the rural and “poor” communities I met there seemed to pretty darn happy. The ‘hell’ I spoke of was actually a reference to the kind of messes we tend to get ourselves in when we intervene in communities without understanding or respecting them. It’s an extreme term I know, but I’ve had some contact to an indigenous agency dealing with Stolen Generation survivors lately and I guess I’m thinking extremes at the moment. I understand from Shakthi that Roeburn was a deeply beautiful place and I apologise if anyone thought I meant to say otherwise.
I think the other place I’ve failed to make myself clear is in the definition of “stories”. It’s kind of a term us narrative therapists bandy about….I mean it to encompass more than telling a story in media sense. To me it includes a person’s beliefs about who they are and where they’ve come from. They might tell me in words, pictures, music but they also can communicate it in the decisions they make, the dreams they dare to have, what they get angry about or the way they get up in the morning. It’s in that wider sense of story that I meant it can influence the future. I don’t believe that to be restricted to those who are interested in media. I think the beliefs all people have about themselves and their past are fundamental in their future choices and therefore the path for themselves and their community.
Your idea about “change” itself being demanded only from the outside is a very interesting one. You’re right. I only assume there is a need for change because of the “story” I have about this community, based really on statistics about literacy, child protection, health etc. But as we all know, statistics can be a subjective as any media story and so your point is well taken. Are the good people of Roeburn happy with things the way they are? That is probably an excellent question to begin with. One I probably would have asked earlier, had I been taking my own post to heart…..
Thanks for giving me so much to think about!
RS
dear maria,
thank you for sharing your thoughts, the best thing these posts can do is start a discussion and get us all out of our comfort zones.
like rebecca, i never thought of ‘the road to hell’ as referring to any particular geographical place or actual community. i took it to be a reference to rebecca’s quote about the evil that can be wrought by do-gooders: the hell that can be created by well-meaning people asserting change in places they have little knowledge about, in disruptive ways.
curiousworks doesn’t work with a community in an effort to change it into something we think is better. we work with a community to set up structures, and provide methods, for open networking and open, diverse communication. these structures and methods – technical, creative, communal – can be utilised by the people in that community to change their own environment, by representing themselves in their own way – if they so wish.
to me, rebecca’s post outlines quite well the full power of having that structure and those methods available in your community. coming from her background as a psychologist, she draws on the perspective of narrative therapy – where the stories people make up about themselves, in a very broad sense, have a great effect on how they think about themselves and therefore what they do or don’t do.
in terms of continuing media or arts work after the facilitators have left the town. i do think it is possible. we’re proud of how we’ve been able to collaborate with ngarluma aboriginal corporation and they have created several videos, taken photos and preserved cultural knowledge since we have left. they are doing it in an integrated, strategic way. and they’re doing it on their own. we just planted the seeds of thought and provided knowledge on simple, affordable ways to create and share multimedia about their community.
with kids it’s much harder to keep these things going, but i do believe it is possible there too. it is just that planting the seeds is not enough: you need to actively present heaps of fun ideas for them to come together and create art or multimedia over a long-term period. once this has taken off – you have lots of returning kids- you can train those who are most interested in the work, the older ones, to keep facilitating it without you.
the resources you need for this task however, are large and we certainly didn’t have the budget for it in 2008. i hope we can gather more resources and that we can return to roebourne and help you with this, however, if you are still there in 2009!
[...] For more information, see: http://www.curiousworks.com.au/2008/08/a-note-from-andrew-dowding-in-roebourne-wa/ http://www.curiousworks.com.au/2008/09/the-road-to-hell/ [...]