INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

Indigenous People



Indigenous People

Introduction

In this paper, I will discuss my approach for working with indigenous peoples in Australia. The aim of the paper is based on the ways personal, cultural and structural privilege maintains the oppression of indigenous peoples. In addition, in the paper I will also discuss the strategies which can be implemented at each level and determine how effective theories implementation will be effective for indigenous people. Indigenous people in Australia are considered as the inhabitants of Australian Continents.

These indigenous Australians migrated from Africa and settled in Asia 70,000 years ago (Blagg, 2000, p. 54). They arrived in Australia 50, 000 years before. The Torres Strait Islanders are considered as native to Torres Strait Islands and are present in the North to Queensland near Papua New Guinea. Aboriginal term is applied to indigenous inhabitants of Tasmania and Australia (Forrest, Dunn, Pe-Pua, 2007, p .43). Indigenous Australians are referred as both Torres Strait islanders and Aboriginal. Indigenous Australians research began about 40, 000 years before and is still a great debate among researchers is in progress. There is a diversity of different indigenous society's communities and comprise of mixed language, customs and cultures. These groups are further divided into different communities at present.

Discussion

Australian Indigenous people

At present, there are about 400,000 Aborigines, only 2.1% of the 19 million Australians, but a very high percentage of the population is poor and unemployed. The aborigines have an unemployment rate of 34%, almost five times the national average. According to official figures, 55% receive welfare and 11% have no income. Aboriginal families are 20 times more likely to be homeless. The average life expectancy of Aboriginal people is 5 to 20 years less than white Australians (Morgan, 2000, p. 417). Moreover, the Aborigines have many health problems and there is a lack of health services. In some communities, 30% of the population has diabetes (four times more than whites). Infant mortality is three to five times higher. The frequency of infectious diseases is 12 times higher and the number of children hospitalized with pneumonia is 80 times greater. Less than 50% of Aboriginal youth aged 15 to 19 years studied, compared with 90% of other groups (Kerins, Jordan, 2010, p. nd).

Oppression of Indigenous People in Australia

Australian Aborigines are considered as the most ancient of civilizations living on Earth who are most poorly explored and understood. They arrived in Australia in the 1788 and then Britain, where British colonists named its native inhabitants as aborigines, borrowing the term.

At present research has not been able to determine and is unlikely ever to be determine when and how the ancestors of today's Aborigines came to this continent. It is assumed that the indigenous inhabitants of Australia migrated here about 50,000 years ago from Indonesia. Before the arrival of Europeans in Australia, Aborigines lived across Australia and comprise of 250 ethnic groups with their own languages. Aborigines live an ancient way of life and are involved in activities which include fruit harvesting, hunting birds ...