Global Issues
First Australians Support Programs
Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation (KBHAC), a Caritas Australia partner, offers former Stolen Generations survivors the chance to heal after a childhood of suffering, and manage the intergenerational effects of their pain. Photo credit: Caritas Australia.
Australia has a long history of making decisions for First Australian communities, rather than upholding their right to decide for themselves.
This history has had deep and long-lasting effects on First Australians, as well as Australia as a whole.
There are glaring inequalities between the general population and those who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander. These inequalities include, but are not exclusive to, lower life expectancies, poorer health, higher infant and maternal mortality rates, financial hardship and ongoing psychological trauma from the dispossession of their land and policies that resulted in the Stolen Generation.
Tom holds red dust near his home town of Narromine, Australia, 2019. Tom is the founder of Red Dust Healing, a specific cultural healing program written from an Indigenous perspective. It aims to engage Indigenous men, women and families to recognise and confront problems, hurt and anger in their lives, stemming primarily from rejection and grief. Photo credit: Richard Wainwright/Caritas Australia.
Fast Facts
50 years
We have been working alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations and communities since 1972.
7 programs
We currently support 7 programs through 6 local partners in Australia.
Led by First Australians
We support programs in Australia that are designed and led by First Australians.
Photo: Patrice Moriarty/Caritas Australia.
Working with First Australian's
We have been working in partnership with the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation (KBHAC) since 2013 to reconnect the Aboriginal men who were forcibly removed from their families and placed in Kinchela Boys Home between 1924-1970, and to restore and reconstruct their identity, dignity and integrity.
Our work with the KBHAC has:
- Produced invaluable healing activities, workshops and counselling to 69 Aboriginal men who survived KBH, and nearly 300 of their descendants.
- Leaders have provided education sessions for the wider community, to share their stories and history.
- Secured aged care for many survivors.
- Formed an advisory committee to the NSW government.
- Produced a short, animated film called ‘We were just little boys’ that’s narrated by survivors.
