tv Australias Lost Generation Al Jazeera June 18, 2018 11:32am-12:00pm +03
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to unite our country no more divisions let's think about a country for all and everyone for me it's very important to tell you and the whole of columbia that today there are no defeated citizens because i want to be the president that gives the same love to those who voted for me and those who didn't israel has introduced a bill that would make it a crime to sell at soldiers includes videos like this one shot by an israeli human rights group showing an israeli soldier shooting dead and capacitated palestinian that led to international condemnation person found guilty could face up to ten years in prison. those are the headlines keep it here on al-jazeera the news continues. next. on june twenty fourth turkish citizens build votes in one of their most significant elections in recent years the winner will take on new sweeping presidential powers approved in a referendum last year we'll have full coverage of the vote and its impact. of the
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turkey elections on al-jazeera. and welcome once again to rewind i'm come all santamaria since sound as they were english launched back in two thousand and six we've been adding to our collection of award winning films year by year and here on rewind we're showcasing some of them once again today it's a one on one east film about the abnormally high suicide rate among young indigenous australians. each year more than one hundred aboriginals choose to end their lives they are twice as likely to commit suicide as other australians in
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kimberley and western australia tree stumps they use to mark the sites of a suicide and programs based on ancient rituals have been developed to try to help young people find their way from twenty twelve this is australia's last generation . remote and picturesque. the kimberley in north west australia. a vast area three times the size of england. the traditional lands of the good ranges. mostly. their job to take care of the land. a using bush skills. study but it's a different bank that are. over one hundred metres down but
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recently these ranges have had to acquire a new set of skills. to to respond to some lloyd know gets younger brother last year the suicide spot the only good ranges to take up a suicide intervention course i lost my little brother too so. last year. we had my birthday. mowanjum has a population of three hundred and fifty people. and is about eight kilometers away from the town of. it situated in the kimberley. the week before we arrived there had been another five suicides in the region. it's taboo to
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talk about the aboriginal culture to even say the name of someone who has passed away but we've been invited to speak with people in the community. there's been more suicides dead than anywhere else in the cooling region just about every single family has been touched by suicide. ogilvy is a suicide response worker for the derby and area has been working here for more than seventeen news her normal has become in this community. very year old kids. want to hang in there actually mark out the tree we're identified trees that they want to hang. out in the kimberley region. in the kimberley
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region it's probably thirty completed in the last twelve months. and that's an epidemic. mark the spot where people have committed suicide. serving as an eerie reminder of the on timely deaths. families guard down. just like you don't want to see it brings back. bad memories but that night. when. best friend killed himself here a few months ago he was just eighteen years old if someone commits suicide it affects the whole community. one big family it's not the first time
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a man has had to deal with the death of someone close to him. when i was only an adolescent. committing suicide i don't know what for. just turning eighteen so i think about it too. and the sound of suicide stirs him in his sleep. i just like. people shouting in the night saying somebody help this person want to commit suicide or hang themselves. void no good believes a lack of opportunity is contributing to a downward spiral. there's nothing there for them but alcohol and drugs there's
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nothing exciting or good for them to enjoy. it. takes us to a popular spot the adults and children go to drink alcohol kimberly's along and drink three times as much i'll hold off and try to you know normal sitting for the boys to have a drink is ninety cans of beer. that's copious amount you know. and the drink that you and i and then go back next time good assignment of going the whole white on a home. and not even flinch. terence james often finds himself in a drug and alcohol haze. we go on to have a good time you know. broke smoke weed.
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a few years ago when he was high and depressed terence tried to hang himself. as i hear that happened in the old. for the rope he takes me to the site of his suicide attempt oh. come over here to help me understand how you're feeling that day. it was getting dark it is. going on. waist that broken. and one of my mind in my mind that school blank you know the day no one went over here to i'm one of them and with them all getting one. just. like nobody in war would mean and over you know
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more and more and more so. the public and we're all going to grab a rope and. we're home. and. we're doing a for you we're doing a good feel for. where the northern territory with us so aside right is three and a half times the national average wedding to an indigenous camp to say how culturally appropriate methods are being used to heal and save they are. david cole runs which means creation in the local language it's about giving the kids a safe place and a culturally appropriate place to just. get away from things play them on share
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some tools of the. can some say the understanding and basically help them work through the challenges i got. to just let things go and how is it culturally appropriate the biggest aspect of the problem is cultural reconnection it's getting the kids to build their self-esteem through identity and culture and that's a key component of the program. six camps. for about a week at this one nine high risk youths are being put to task. for. making traditional weapons to help break connect them to their ancient culture. more than forty thousand history. with traditional dance
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i. and smoking ceremonies to cleanse. but one of these adolescents have thought of committing suicide and are recovering from drug and alcohol addictions. we can't identify them because they're under age ranging from twelve to sixteen years old. to early and hoping to heal. you know the violence the broken families the loss of identity the various forms of abuse physical mental emotional. substance abuse drug and alcohol. can be drug and alcohol around the kids and ultimately the kids being embroiled in that substance abuse themselves.
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first indigenous psychologist professor pat dudgeon. says substance abuse is a symptom of largest social issues i think that indigenous people are still dealing with all the problems that are a consequence from. all of that prying has been left unattended and just manifested through the generations and that plane passed on to the children and site has led to the children that we have today who at the end of that they don't understand the pain that i must understand where it comes from and i don't understand why they must endure such crying. this fifteen year old who can bring is one boy who wanted to end his life mom. she kind of man you just. don't feel lucky. now so.
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what do you do with that anger. do bad things. because. that's where you find the drugs and stuff like that with a little help from nature david cole is trying to show these adolescents how to isolate their problems. if there's violence broken family if there's been past abuse or if there's been whatever it is every challenge every problem that bothers you or is on your mind i want you to get iraq i want you to just paul along the road to the war on. the big of the problem the bigger the rock. how does it have it how do they feel is it hurting. and that's what problems do you if you refuse to find ways of releasing it you will have to carry this pine tree a whole lot you have to learn you have to be willing to learn how to let go i had
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a lot of sort of pre. let. young people need to be given. that they culture. being cultural activities and feel that they are part of a community and a cultural community. so we're only going to a small healing session a meditation and. to finish. this is the healing circle. and indigenous version of a counseling session. which is going to go through a very. reading meditation technique. in accordance with aboriginal custom for the young boys to speak at the healing circle but they're
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encouraged to. we are. both. cameron says the camp has made him feel stronger. like. and. respect and. more. the challenge lies in keeping these boys on track after they leave the balun you camp it's really hard it's hard for us because. thirty percent of the kids are extreme hard risk area and they were kids to be deeply involved in substance abuse and the ones who are looking at it as an option from the sky. with their lack of resources and lack of appropriate funding and support we we can't do adequate
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follow up marion scrymgour is an outgoing state minister in the northern territory government she skeptical that money from a controversial government package is reaching indigenous communities under the northern territory emergency response there was nearly soaring billion dollars that significant tax payers money that's gone into what people think has gone into these communities a lot of their money is spent on bureaucrats consultants a lot of people fly in fly out from these communities there is very little money that goes into pride grains and for working with families working with communities so that they can build it and start dealing with that with the trauma. she says she's leaving politics because she doesn't believe it's hoping aboriginals enough heck can i sit in this job any longer don't know what i'm doing. we've got i ten
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year old young kids killing themselves. it's clear something is wrong. their communities have got to start taking some strong staying. because there's not going to be a generation left if. we're heading east of darwin to the picturesque and largely indigenous land just a few years ago the king. it hits gave me the highest rates of having time no well at its highest point average for the elderly ladies decided to take matters into their own hands. is a ski beach she says it was the hanging suicide of a twenty one year old that sparked a cluster of other suicides in her community he was the first one to commit suicide
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. the first time his community in this community. also committed suicide that was when her family took action seven years ago creating a volunteer service called the mangas suicide prevention group what do you do to prevent suicide in the community. i would walk me and my sisters we walk the streets and listen for the noise where it's coming from. the women run a twenty four hours suicide watch often patrolling the streets with only small torches they mediate in family issues and mental troubled youths will probably up the next day go to their house and sit down have a cup of tea read with their peers then and so they were noting that angry with the brits like cancelling. local police say the group's work has been
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invaluable for boys that since they've become operating i think there's been a suicide in their area and while suicide numbers have dropped there's been a shop rise in attempted suicides looking at the figures from thirty two thousand treated to have an eye where there was forty or ten now and just as two year period two and a half he's the one hundred thirteen that's a significant increase. his nick still bears the rope marks from his suicide attempt to weeks ago. group intervened just in time to save the twenty three year old. two months. the reason i've been doing this was because my biggest problem is with alcohol and once i start drinking alcohol i start losing control i would think things like my family doesn't love me and i want to go hang
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myself with the money i don't want to learn to new i want to change my life a better life so that i can spend time with my son go hunting and fishing with him and do good thing on the. back in mowanjum terence told me he wants to cut down the tree where he attempted suicide. or look. you know man. to me that's a staple of someone going forward. but then remove something of a symbol that. they want to end their life me. in its own way the community too is giving itself the space to heal. the trees were
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families but people commit suicide it's up and down but we don't actually care as the time it takes to grow back gives us the time to get over forget about it. while suicide remains a scourge in aboriginal communities across astray it appears that family and culture is indigenous australia is best hope to saving the young. australia of last generation so that was back in twenty twelve which leads us to ask how successful have those schemes been in reducing the suicide rate where we're joined now by psychologist professor pat dudgeon who you recognize from the film a former commissioner of the stray and national mental health commission she teaches at the university of western australia and actually runs a number of suicide prevention projects focusing on aboriginal communities it's
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great to have you with us here on ri one professor dudgeon you really believe then that that local approach works oh absolutely look every channel interest right on the people have been just some pad there's a whole lot of issues facing women not just us and a stride in this old. would remain issues for indigenous people of settler countries such as in new zealand canada and the states where recovery from call on is a really important issue and what we do on the names that enable people to become empowered to control their own destinies to control their iron resources to decide what the problem is and to be given the right information to decide what the solution is back in twenty twelve when the film was made the wood epidemic was used to describe that situation in western australia and i'm not suggesting for a moment that this would be fixed overnight but we are now six years down the track
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the levels are still high there were some reports which talk about one hundred times the national average in western australia. i mean would you have expected or certainly hoped for it to have come down more real god think that's. sometimes those figures have been a tad sensationalized suicide writes however having said that suicide rites do remind very hard i was still twice the national average suicide is the fifth leading cause of death and some my group's indigenous people are seven times more likely to type their laws the papal and northern territory actually is i'm a genius. having the greatest state average of suicide when you have having a high suicide right something is going terribly wrong you mentioned some other countries a little bit earlier places like new zealand and canada what is the common factor with these indigenous communities around the world including the aboriginal
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australia that leads to the high suicide rates ah look there's a commonality of a range of different things but odd side that certainly i think there is an affinity with those other countries because they were indigenous people in those countries the countries were taken and sometimes very almost tong's very brutally so we've had processes of colonize asian you know being removed genocides being removed off country put into reserves missions residential schools and then having new laws dictated to enforce legislation so there's a history told the countries that are about people losing their they draw it's losing their countries and losing their human rights which needs to be we need to go into recovery about certainly in a stride. there was denial of that part of that process of history
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that's now starting to change change around certainly are proud then prime minister kevin rudd's apology to the stolen generations was one of the guys really his. there was an acknowledgment of the high. and a genuine polity given full that. i think that we as a nation can stop hailing when and and and a state between different groups professor papped dudgeon former. national mental health commission it's been a pleasure talking to thank you for joining us my pleasure and that is it from join us again next week and also be sure to check out the rewind page at al-jazeera dot com for more films from the series. from the whole team thanks for joining us.
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and for size my grave warring regarding the saudi monarchy led coalition's ongoing attacks in her data which could result in enormous civilian casualties and . a stern warning from the united nations about the humanitarian effects of the violence in yemen. and richelle carey this is out there a life and also coming up the battle for libya's oil or lower khalifa haftar attempts to reclaim the term.
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