Communities
When you walk on country, you can feel something special inside. You can feel stories from old people, our fathers, and grandfathers leading us in the right way. Over the past 25 years Governments have been cutting back on support for people living on country.
Some people want to live in bigger places like Ramingining but many of us want to be living back on our homelands all the time. Before, we used to get health services, bush schools, shopping services, road maintenance in our homelands. But that support has gone down. It’s getting harder.
We need support to be on country where we can enjoy healthy bush tucker. Many of us don’t feel safe when we leave the bush. Town foods are giving us high blood pressure.
Bush life is important to take young people away from the influence of drugs and give them a positive outlook on life. We have been losing too many young people in the big communities. Some run away from the homelands to town and drugs — if there were jobs on the homelands many more would stay and live a clean life.
When our young people are in the bush they get to see how what they do makes a difference to country, and to them. They go burning for yam and other bush foods and see new life coming up. They learn to care for country and themselves. If we are in the bush we can teach our young people to hunt and share all the stories for country.
Healthy Country Plan
We know that the land needs its people to care for it and to keep it healthy. In the same way we know that caring for the country keeps us healthy – physically, spiritually and mentally.