Teaching Aboriginal street kids in Rockhampton

Another learning experience I had was in 2001, teaching Aboriginal street kids in Rockhampton. I came to learn the problems these kids faced, and their genuine desire to overcome these problems.

This was shortly after I had left Woorabinda Aboriginal Community, where I was running the TAFE at the local high school, and at the same time as I was teaching Certificate III in Retail to long term unemployed students at a private training college during the day.

Three afternoons a week, I would make the trip from the CBD, across the Fitzroy River to Berserker, and sit down teaching maths and English to Aboriginal high school kids who had been identified as at risk.

These kids came from backgrounds where poverty, alcoholism, abuse and domestic violence were part of their home life, and many spent much of their time living on the streets rather than living at home.

Many proved to be above average students, and just needed the extra assistance of one-on-one tutoring that couldn’t be provided at their high school.

This was provided through the Federal Government’s national Aboriginal Tutorial Assistance Scheme (ATAS), which was renamed the Indigenous Tutorial Assistance Scheme (ITAS) in 2005, and is still running today.

They embraced their studies in these private sessions with greater enthusiasm than they could at school. They told of being ignored at school because only the brightest students got the most attention from the teachers, and struggling students were often seen as a lost cause.

They told of being bullied at school because they couldn’t afford school uniforms, and often didn’t have food for recess or lunch. They told of being attacked both physically and verbally simply because they were Aboriginal.

Some related their experiences of being sexually abused and beaten from an early age. They told of going hungry for days on end, and eating from garbage bins just to get food.

They told of the physical fights between their parents or their guardians, which often involved police and trips to the hospital. They told of being moved around from one family member to the next, where the same problems often occurred again.

They told of being exploited on the streets by predators who saw them as easy targets and offered them food, cash and sometimes a place to sleep. Mostly, though, they spoke of their desire to have somewhere they could feel safe, and how things would be different one day.

The stories were very similar to what I had seen first hand in Woorabinda during my time there.

It is little wonder that with such huge problems at such a young age, that they were unable to keep up with other students at school.

These are problems I would later learn, in my work with the street people in Brisbane, are not confined to Indigenous people. They exist right across the wider community as well.

These problems exist in both cities and rural communities. The difference is, in the cities, a lot more money is thrown at the problem, while the same services generally do not exist in Indigenous, remote and rural communities across Australia.

It is little wonder therefore that we see youth crime spiralling out of control in these communities right across Australia, which has been highlighted in Alice Spring in recent weeks.

This work is very demanding and emotionally draining. One can not just turn up and do one’s hours then go home. It becomes part of your life. It changes you.

The teachers involved in the program brought food to the sessions, to share with the students. We went on group outings with the students in our own time. We usually stayed way past the small amount of hours the education department allocated to us to ensure that the students got the best results.

It was rewarding when the students came back and proudly showed us that they had got an A or a B in an assignment or a test. It was rewarding when we developed trust with the students, and they would share their feelings and stories with us. It was rewarding when I ran into one of the students some years later in Brisbane, and she told of going on to university and becoming an accountant.

Eventually, however, ATSIC approached me to take on the role of manager of an Aboriginal corporation having financial problems in NSW, and it was time to say farewell to Rockhampton and move on. But that’s a story for another day.

Craig Hill is a Brisbane-based Social Justice Campaigner, Writer, Teacher and Business Consultant. He has campaigned for social justice in Australia, promoted human rights in China and worked with the homeless in Honolulu. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Education and a degree in Management.