Discussion
The Aboriginal or the Torres Strait Islander communities are the ethnic groups of Australia. It is important for the people to make them collectively participate in any cultural programs and also making them aware about the changes that are taking place in the society.
Tjapukai Cultural Park of Australia is a popular centre for indigenous group, the information that has been gathered from there. The resource based on practice- Working with the Aboriginal people and also the communities’ acts as guidance to all the community services and other particular field staffs. It is significant to make the delivery of the service to the aborigines efficient in order to work with the communities of aborigines (Murphy 2015). Working with the Aborigines delivers relevant information and the process of understanding of the cultural varieties that believed to be existed within the communities and families of Aborigines.
There is no homogenous culture within Aborigines. According to the estimation, there were about 700 lingual groups of Aborigines (Murphy 2015). However, the number has come down to 150. The communities while they share some of the common practices and believe are unique in their own style. There are differences of culture of the nations of Aborigines.
In Tjapukai Cultural Park of Australia, there are two indigenous cultures existed in Australia as the part of the national heritage and they are Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal. These two groups of people are considered to be the First Australians and they had been living in the country since more than forty thousand years. However, there is no single culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander and they have numerous groupings, kinship and language (Murphy 2015). These people live in rural, urban areas of Australia. Culture acts as a central importance for this indigenous group. Survival for identities is a prior concern for this group of people.
Aboriginal or the people of Torres Strait Islander were pushed out of their homeland by the colonisers. Even many harmful diseases brought by the colonizers took life of these people (Heffermen et al 2012). The indigenous people are moved into such places where they cannot speak their language (Murphy 2015). Later on laws were also implemented which restricted the rights of these indigenous people. Their children were also removed from their family in order to get raised in any institutions or being fostered by the
While taking these issues into account there are important steps that are needed in order to eradicate racism and to build inclusive behavior.
- A teacher while teaching in the classroom must avoid the use of tokenism and incorporate every children irrespective of their race and culture to build an inclusive education system
- National Child Care Ethics of Australia has to be implemented to include the indigenous children to participate in different school programs, in order to build an inclusive society.
- It is important to become a role model and teach people in terms of dealing with racism. Treating everyone equally this would deliver the message that no one should practice racism (Behrendt et al 2012)
- To create an inclusive behavior, customs, indulging into doing various activities are needed to be taken into account by including people having different backgrounds. An inclusive society is needed for all and this can only be happen when the people would stop differentiating people in work places and on the basis of cultural background (Parker and Milroy 2014).
Conclusion
Conclusion
Therefore it could be concluded that Torres Strait Islanders or Aboriginal people of Australia are facing still quite a number of problems on the basis of racism which also as a result affecting their mentality and health factors. Therefore, racism is considered to be as the major issues and this must be stopped in all the aspects of life.
The Resource Induction Kit was prepared in order to have access to the relevant information in order to encourage the professional’s skills through providing care to individuals and families who are from different cultural backgrounds (Cartmel et al 2012). The resource kit provides the following points which are covering some of the important areas.
- The transforming demography in the region of Australia, a focus has to be made on the increasing minority (Cartmel et al 2012).
- Immigrant population and its result on the practices of health.
- The ardent need for cultural competency in different institutions.
- Elaborating how economic and political backgrounds are affecting a person working in an institution (Cartmel et al 2012).
- Addressing the barriers in the communication in an institution.
- Ethno-cultural issues are needed to be addressed in different organizations.
- The resource kit is the only available resources to encourage a person’s skills and knowledge.
Equal Opportunity
Equal opportunity stands for every people who have the freedom to participate freely such as in the field of education, jobs and also in the workplaces Law of equal opportunity has an objective to promote everyone’s right to exploit the same opportunities (Ang and Van 2015). The students, parents and members of the school council must act accordingly with the acts of equal opportunity and it is important to make sure that the workplaces are safe.
Diversity and inclusion
While studying in an institution, there are children from different backgrounds. In order to make the education system inclusive, the educators must not differentiate the children on the basis of their cultural backgrounds.
Enrolment and Orientation
- At enrolment and orientation, the students must meet the teachers
- It is important for the students to talk about the structure of the syllabus.
- It is important to make new friends
- A student must find their way around the campus (Ang and Van 2015).
Partnership and waging communication with families
The teachers need to deal with the parents in order to keep them informed about the progress of their children in the institution and make them sure that they are being taken care of. A relationship is indeed needed; this would create an amicable settlement between the student’s family and children (Ang and Van 2015). The communication would further make the teachers understand about problems of the children.
- Relevant legislation and Government requirements
The Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) published a consultation overview. It declares the importance of cultural competency for the Aboriginal and children and families of Torres Strait Islander. Child Australia published Booklet of Cultural Connections; it gives idea to the staff activities to guide children (Pecora et al 2012).
- Addressing stereotypes and racism
The racism and stereotypes can only be addressed by providing proper education to the children. Exploring ideas of mixing with the people who are having different cultural backgrounds (Fredickson 2015). It is important to bring a social change to protect the equal rights and opportunities of the people by spreading the awareness about racism.
- Culturally safe environment
Equal Opportunity
Culturally safe means that the environment is safe for the children to continue their studies. The children would be from form the vices of racism and bullying. It is the responsibility of the educators to take care of such environment and maintain the cultural competent strong enough to build a protective aura around the children. Cultural identity’s production, the mental growths are needed to be taken care of.
Resources which can guide students to develop cultural competency
Interpreters: Interpreters can be utilized by the educators in order to create a communication line with the students speaking in different languages (Caliguiri and Tariq 2012).
Advisory body: It is the body which has been made up to provide advices to the students who are facing problems regarding to cop up with the policies of the school.
Arranging awareness programs in School: This is another important resource that an educator can organize to spread awareness in the community of the students (Caliguiri and Tariq 2012).
Books: Another important resource where the educators can teach the students about the awareness programs in terms of thesis, articles or journals.
Group activities: This is another most important source which can be organized by the educator where the children can learn about each other in terms of activities organized in the groups (Caliguiri and Tariq 2012).
Culturally concentrated curriculum: To spread the awareness of the education, the curriculum for the students should be made in such a way that it is successful in addressing the cultural aspects of the society.
Teachers must act as facilitator to spread awareness among the students regarding the cultural diversities.
Resource Library: The library must be available to students which cover up books on the diversities. The children must have access to the library and self study them to increase the cultural competency in them (Caliguiri and Tariq 2012).
References
Ang, S. and Van Dyne, L., 2015. Handbook of cultural intelligence. Routledge.
Behrendt, L.Y., Larkin, S., Griew, R. and Kelly, P., 2012. Review of higher education access and outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Caligiuri, P. and Tarique, I., 2012. Dynamic cross-cultural competencies and global leadership effectiveness. Journal of World Business, 47(4), pp.612-622.
Cartmel, J., Macfarlane, K. and Casley, M., 2012. Reflection as a tool for quality: Working with the National Quality Standard. Early Childhood Australia.
Fredrickson, G.M., 2015. Racism: A short history. Princeton University Press.
Heffernan, E.B., Andersen, K.C., Dev, A. and Kinner, S., 2012. Prevalence of mental illness among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Queensland prisons. Medical Journal of Australia, 197(1), p.37.
Murphy, E., 2015. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Green Left Weekly, (1072), p.5.
Parker, R. and Milroy, H., 2014. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health: an overview. Working together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and wellbeing principles and practice, 2, pp.25-38.
Pecora, P.J., Whittaker, J.K., Maluccio, A.N. and Barth, R.P., 2012. The child welfare challenge: Policy, practice, and research. AldineTransaction.