Indigenous Australians

Constitutional recognition

Empowering Indigenous Australians

"When we have power over our destiny our children will flourish. They will walk in two worlds and their culture will be a gift to their country."

 

At a gathering at Uluru on 26 May 2017, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander leaders urged Australians to discuss constitutional reform.

Fifty years after Australians voted overwhelmingly to count Aboriginal people, they said they now wanted to be heard.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart calls for important structural reforms to establish a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution and to establish a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement-making between governments and First Nations. It calls for truth-telling about our country’s history.

World Vision stands alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples supporting their calls for change.

Having worked all around the world with communities transforming lives we know that building relationships and empowering Indigenous Australians to shape their children’s futures will create sustainable change for their communities. 

These reforms would represent important milestones in our journey towards reconciliation as a nation, helping to create a stronger and more inclusive Australian society.

A nation which is unreconciled to its past cannot move towards its future with confidence.

World Vision is walking with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to create the future they want for their children, families and communities.

Walk with us.

 

Find out more about constitutional recognition and express your support here.

Empowering Kimberley communities to lead change

Zondra, 27, lays a colourful mat and toys out on a shady patch of red dirt in her remote community of Pandanas Park in Western Australia’s Kimberley. Here she runs the Aboriginal community’s only early childhood program which World Vision supports.

Zondra is personally invested in helping children and young people in her community build brighter futures for themselves. She wants to give them hope for the future – something her brother never experienced when he took his own life at the age of 14.

Since Zondra and other local mothers have been running the playgroup, other parents have been attending regularly. Children are learning and developing the basic building blocks for happy and healthy lives. Parents like that community members are running the show, women who know their community and share their culture.

Stories like this are common in our development work at World Vision, which spans more than 40 years in Australia and 60 years internationally. Give people a voice and the power to shape their futures and they will.

Support Indigenous Australians Support development in Indigenous communities.

 

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