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International aid agency to work with Aboriginal kids in Perth

By Edmond Roy

18 May 2006 - TONY EASTLEY: The international aid agency, Save the Children, known for its work in the third world, is now planning to work with Aboriginal children in metropolitan Perth before the end of the year.

The organisation says Aboriginal children in the city and in remote areas face as much risk as children in some poverty-stricken third world areas.

The agency's General Manager for Development, Karen Hill, is speaking here with our reporter, Edmond Roy.

KAREN HILL: What we're looking to develop is our… we have an award-winning program based in Queensland which is what we call our Future Parents program, which is a child protection program that works with young parents and potential young parents looking at babysitting training and so forth.

But there's a real child protection element where we talk about domestic violence, how to deal with domestic violence, how to protect children from exploitation and so forth.

EDMOND ROY: Why have you chosen metropolitan Perth?

KAREN HILL: Because there's… in every state, in every country there's a need for child protection training for young parents in order to bring in better parenting skills.

EDMOND ROY: I suppose the question is… Save the Children… normally when you hear Save the Children you think of third world countries, not a city in Australia.

KAREN HILL: No, that's quite correct and a significant proportion of our program is overseas. But actually, Save the Children has also been working in Australia for about 50 years now looking at child protection issues, early childhood development, domestic violence, and health and well-being in every state of Australia and also in the Northern Territory recently.

EDMOND ROY: Now, you also say that some of the conditions in remote areas of Western Australia are probably worse than third world countries?

KAREN HILL: I think in some cases, yes, they are very bad. But I think what makes it worse is the problem is slightly different. In developing countries, you often have a lack of resources so that a little bit of resource can go a long way to making a difference.

In some of these communities, there are… we have the resources. What we're not doing is spending it appropriately. We're not making enough of a change to help solve the problem. So we actually have to look at why isn't it working?

EDMOND ROY: And what have you found?

KAREN HILL: I think one of the major areas, and look, there are a lot of people who are much more qualified than I am to discuss this, but a lot of the reason is that the communities aren't always involved in determining their solutions.

The way that we work is a community development approach, where we build capacity in the community and we listen to the community in what they think will work.

So we're not imposing solutions, we're working with the community to come up with solutions that might work and then testing them and hopefully, once they're successful, taking them further.

TONY EASTLEY: Karen Hill, General Manager of Development at the aid agency Save the Children, speaking there with AM's Edmond Roy.

Source:ABC

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