By Meg Hill
When Caitlin Prince sees one of her students break down, it's no surprise. While some students use avoidance strategies to delay a breakdown, it usually happens at some point.
"Eventually something crashes through, and we have to be there to help guide them through that process and those feelings," Caitlin says.
Global poverty: 360° interactive map and story experience
Caitlin is an occupational therapist working in remote Indigenous communities in Western Australia.
She supervises speech pathology and occupational therapy students from Curtin University in Perth.
The students travel to the remote Pilbara community of Jigalong – home of the Martu people – for five-week placements.
Caitlin and the students treat the Indigenous children for various health issues.
Much of the speech pathology work focuses on hearing impairment and associated communication problems in children, while occupational therapy tackles fine motor skills.
During their placements, the students build relationships with the locals and listen to harrowing personal stories of the stolen generation, the displacement of its people and the crippling poverty they face each day.
The harsh truth of disadvantaged Indigenous children
“When I read this one boy’s case file I nearly cried,” says 24-year-old Eliza Offereins, a Master of Speech Pathology student who completed her placement in August, 2017.
“He was eight but he was the size of my three-year-old niece, he was soiling at school almost every day, and being tested for fetal alcohol syndrome.”
Eliza was initially hung up on these disadvantages, but found herself in awe of the courageous boy.
Global poverty: 360° interactive map and story experience
“This kid taught me so much about resilience, he is such a beautiful young person and has so much joy and strength,” she says.
“And I got to learn so much from him as well as teaching him.
“That’s the most rewarding aspect, and that happened time and time again.”
Eliza says non-Indigenous Australians need to stop looking down on communities like Jigalong because they don’t satisfy our white way of thinking.
“This is their home,” she says.
“Most of the families have been here for generations and generations. It’s home and family. They love it and the sense of community it has.”
The population of just 300 is comprised of all-important family ties. When you’re immersed in the community, you see the beauty of it.
Global poverty: 360° interactive map and story experience
“They might not have some skills that we see as important, but they have totally other skills that we don’t,” she says.
Eliza describes the community’s remarkable, collective knowledge of local history and the stories behind different landmarks and locations. Everyone knows everyone and is looking out for each other.
She says the experience has changed how she views Indigenous people in Australia.
“There’s such negative connotations, but they don’t open up to you because so many white providers come in and out of their lives, and never take the time to build a relationship.”
Eliza says when white people have hurt the Indigenous people in the past, and now want to work with their kids, there will obviously be trust issues.
Global poverty: 360° interactive map and story experience
On her last day, Eliza was getting ready to leave when the eight-year-old boy she had met in the beginning ran up to her – and hugged her.
“He yelled 'bye Eliza!’ and he’d never used my name before. It was a really special moment that I’ll always remember.”
The emotional rollercoaster of therapy
“The biggest challenge is allowing yourself to go through the emotional rollercoaster. There are days I’m in tears, but I’m able to learn so much more after that,” says 22-year-old Karina Butler, an occupational therapy student during her fourth week of the placement.
“There are really happy and really sad moments. You’re told about terrible things that have happened to the kids or their parents, and working through that is quite an emotional journey.”
Global poverty: 360° interactive map and story experience
The key message Caitlin offers the students is to slow down and stop to listen.
Karina says this process needs to be embraced for the work to be successful.
The Martu people see it as strength to allow emotional vulnerability.
“When you recognise your own emotions, you can be more emotionally available to the people here and they can open up to you,” Karina says.
“They sense emotional authenticity through your body language.
“In the city someone asks how you are and they expect you to say ‘I’m good’, here you can feel what you need to feel.”
Getting used to the differences in communication is difficult, especially in a cross-cultural treatment setting, where getting to know both the children and mothers is vital.
Global poverty: 360° interactive map and story experience
The key is in listening.
“You don’t get anywhere when you’re filling in all the silences. You’re in a conversation and you’ve given a bit of silence, you go to say the next word and then they jump in.”
When Karina’s group first arrived, no one knew who they were. By the middle of their second week, people were waving at them from cars.
“Seeing the progress in the kids is amazing and that’s what we’re here for,” she says.
"But even more so, the relationship that we've been able to have with the mothers is incredible."
Karina used the example of a two-year-old boy with severe hearing loss and communication difficulties.
“He was screaming and crying and couldn’t communicate anything.”
After about five sessions, he was playing and giggling, making eye contact and gesturing.
“We can’t even take the credit for it because his mum did so much. She took in everything we said and did everything possible, and she’s just one example.”
“That would be my highlight.”
Challenges of a dusty workplace, far from home comforts
“Jigalong was complicated, really complicated. I feel like we didn’t even scratch the surface with understanding the complexities of a community like that,” says 25-year-old Jo Kirkman, an occupation therapy student among the first group of students in the program.
The biggest challenge for Jo was acknowledging her privilege in a non-theoretical setting.
Global poverty: 360° interactive map and story experience
“I’d heard the term intergeneration trauma and read about it, but it is difficult to understand until you meet someone who was taken away from her family,” Jo says.
“And you see the tears in her eyes as she talks about coming home but still feeling disconnected.
“It’s really confronting to think about your happy, privileged life in the western suburbs of Perth knowing that so many Aboriginal people are so disadvantaged.
“It stops being theoretical when you meet people and hear their stories.”
Jo says while the town is not pretty in a western sense, comprised of a few basic buildings and dusty roads, there is a sense of collectivism that makes it beautiful.
“It’s not exactly a pretty town but more like a feeling. I remember telling Caitlin that I felt at home, and I wasn’t even born in Australia.”
Jo described her first day as overwhelming, starting out with a flat tyre and arriving in Jigalong as the sun set on the horizon.
“I felt like a fish out of water.”
Kids and teachers came out to meet the group and, because there isn’t a central outdoor meeting spot, they had a sausage sizzle in a big, dusty field, with light supplied by someone’s headlights.
“We came full circle on the last day,” she says.
“We had a barbeque and invited absolutely everyone, but we weren’t sure who would come.
“Everyone came, we had a big fire, there were kids running around.
"It was so much fun and really nice to see that the community wanted to come to something we organised.”
