Ordinary people, extraordinary lives
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Hearing the Cry
Margaret Appleby has a life-affirming aura, a warm smile and deep compassion that has stood her in good stead throughout her groundbreaking work in suicide prevention. As long-time head of Lifeline Macarthur in Sydney’s most heavily populated southern fringe, and through her numerous books and Rose Foundation training workshops Marg began to reduce the stigma and change the way people dealt with life-threatening depression. Her original mentor told her to help the suicidal person to see one spot of grey in their tunnel vision, which he likened to a screen of black, and to enlarge it. And he told her to go forth and educate; she took up the challenge - individuals, communities, the media, funeral directors, health professionals, school children and teachers. |
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Jack’s Dream Jack Little from Bulla community, NT, is a walking history of Top End cultural change from his early days growing up in a humpy in the 1930s, no schooling but life itself, to life as a young cattle ringer. Through suffering leprosy and being sent to East Arm Leprosarium near Darwin, Jack’s intelligence and practical nature were harnessed when he became one of the Territory’s first Aboriginal health workers. He has built up a new community, Bulla near the WA border, based on the healthy living principles he learned from East Arm and years of community development. His story tells of the tenacity and courage needed to take on the struggles of Aboriginal life in outback Australia. |
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Salamanca Brumby
In 1990, Ian Dickenson from northeastern Tasmania was thrust into the tumult over management of Tasmania’s forests. The family farm had burnt out in the horrific 1967 bushfires which killed 65 people. Ian moved north to near Launceston, married Rosemary and they built up house and farm through times of debt and rural downturns. By 1990 war raged in the forests. Mainland Australians watched in amazement as dramas unfolded of police being called in to unchain protesters from trees, shouting people rallied in front of bulldozers and rowdy demonstrations became commonplace in this previously conservative state. Ian’s story tells of his role as a humble farm forester, appointed by the State Government to unravel the turmoil and ‘achieve peace in the forests’ within 18 months. He dealt with the intense debates, endless negotiations, even hate mail and threatening phone calls as he chaired the consultation process leading to the Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement. |
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Hey, Sister!
From when she was 'knee-high to a grasshopper' Margaret Carnegie-Smith wanted to be a nurse among people with leprosy - a big dream for a Newcastle youngster. She left school at 14, but driven by her passion for nursing, Marg trained and became a mobile nurse in outback NT. By the 1950s and 60s leprosy was in epidemic proportions in the Top End with 600 diagnosed cases, but sufferers were hard to find. Marg and another nurse would travel by Land Cruiser to every Aboriginal community and cattle station from Darwin east to the Gulf of Carpentaria. They gave everyone a thorough health check, including for leprosy, and immunised the children. If a test showed leprosy the person went to East Arm Leprosarium near Darwin, and could return home after treatment. Through skill, compassion and determination, Marg and a small band of health workers stopped the spread of leprosy. By 1980 East Arm had closed. |
