Defined Terms and Documents      'Aboriginal Teenager Life Skills' RTV Early Intervention Programme 

Seeing what it is like to be an Unlucky Australian means:

Aboriginal prison rates notes:

             In 2019 Aboriginal people represented only 3% of the total population, yet 29% of Australia’s prison population were Aboriginal.

Selected Six Townships In The Northern Territory With A Population >2000 refers to an SMH article "Crying out for a new beginning" by Rachel Olding, published 2 Feb '13, which described the remote western NSW township of Bourke, with a population of 3,000 to be more dangerous than any other township in the world. 

The below extracts from Rachel Olding's article evidence that -

(i)         many children in isolated country towns like Bourke NSW, with a high percentage of Aboriginals, face unique difficulties that the vast majority of "Lucky Australians" do not; and

(ii)        Bourke has no 'role models' amongst the Aboriginal population which other Aboriginals can aspire to live like.

  • "Bourke topped the state for six of the eight major criminal offences last year including assault, break and enter, motor vehicle theft and malicious damage to property.

  •  Aboriginal youths make up 80 per cent of incarcerated people in the region.

  •  Astonishingly, there are more than 50 organisations run by the state, federal or community in Bourke that receive millions of taxpayer dollars each year to address the town's problems.

  •  State, federal and local governments have dismally failed the town of Bourke. Yet so has the town itself.

  •  "I couldn't say there are leaders in Bourke because there are no role models," said a local foster mother, Lillian Lucas, 35.

  •  One community member, who wished to remain anonymous, said the only way forward for Bourke was to start afresh with new approaches."

The article highlights that in NSW, the isolated western towns of Walgett, and Cobar, with a high Aboriginal component, also have excessive crime rates. 

"A criminal waste of young lives" by NATASHA ROBINSON of The Australian - 12 Jan 13 reports on isolated townships in N/W NSW:

"Police are at their wits' end with the boys that make up small groups of chronic offenders. Magistrates - powerless to punish those too young to be of criminal mind - throw up their hands in despair. Communities decry the soft touch of the judiciary. Criminal lawyers stagger as they digest the harsh jail terms that seem to come out of the blue: a one-year sentence for a cleanskin who stole a packet of hamburger buns; 18 months for a chronic offender with a gram of dope." 

"Rivers of grog and endemic child sexual abuse are evils widely acknowledged to blight remote Australia, but the same sickening trends in the regions barely pierce the national consciousness."

"Yet Aboriginal women and children are its victims no matter where they live, says WA Aboriginal lawyer Hannah McGlade, a long-time campaigner against family violence and child sexual abuse."

"The incarceration of indigenous youth and family violence are flip sides of the same coin," McGlade says. "Instead of tackling the violence and supporting the family to become a healthy family, we ignore the problem, we target the children, and they become incarcerated."

Searching with Google indicates that Western Australia has an even larger crime problem per capita than NSW in some isolated townships.

Mark Russell of THE AGE 'Violence in indigenous communities must stop, says judge' chronicles that "a judge in the Victorian Supreme Court has called on society to do something to stop the 'appalling' violence in the indigenous community" after sentencing a woman who killed her abusive husband to six years jail, which reads like a horror story; difficult for 99% of readers to rationalise.

There is a welter of evidence [in below 5 bullet points] of child sexual abuse, neglect, family violence, youth suicide, school absenteeism, boredom, Social Disadvantage, dilapidated housing, early experimentation with alcohol, petrol sniffing and excessive cigarette smoking in remote Australian townships which have a high aboriginal population, listed in Nadir Of Human Endurance which also provides the following other newspaper articles:

  1. The Australian - "A criminal waste of young lives" - NATASHA ROBINSON -12 Jan '13

  2. THE AGE -  'Violence in indigenous communities must stop, says judge' - Mark Russell - 26 April  2013.

Past Preventive Health programme failures, specifically directed at communities with high aboriginal participation, evidence that the task upon Eleven Mentor Roles is huge.  Seemingly, there will be a lot of 'confronting' footage of Indigenous Local Connectors, supported by 'above and beyond' efforts from Six Regional Township Teams' Co-ordinators, endeavouring to solve a multiplicity of Social Problems that some of the 140 x  Accepted Students will encounter, which threatens to derail those students commitment.  History evidences that there will be a material attrition rate.

Private Sector Philanthropic Administrator Model can deliver 'Aboriginal Teenager Life Skills' Early Intervention Programme because of the powerful Motivational Incentive Of RTV.  However, the role, commitment and aptitude of each of the 10 x  Indigenous Local Connectors for each of the Three Motivational Teams Challenges, which aggregate to 30 x  different Indigenous Local Connectors 'in toto' over three years (due to the diversity between sport, public speaking and I.T.) is pivotal to success or failure of the 'Aboriginal Teenager Life Skills' Programme. 

Casual empiricism of the below bureaucratic reports and anecdotal evidence from the above three listed newspaper articles suggest that  "Attaining Teenager Life Skills" will confront the Nadir Of Human Endurance:

Many RTV programmes seek to maximise emotion, passion and sensationalism, even including a 'bad guy' in judging panels and/or contriving the results.  "Attaining Teenager Life Skills" would not follow this latter norm to attract high ratings.  As noted in Achieve a Good News Story -  Feel Good Story  -  Win/Win Situation, an integral goal is to deliver a "feel good story" where all parties, including Council Mayors, Counsellors, and Rotary and Lions members as Various Parties (identified in How in the Six Regional Townships) are pleased with the outcomes of the Thirteen Deliverables.

Maximising positive emotion and passion to succeed will be in the mindset of the 30 Wise Old Owls.  However, there will not be any 'bad guy' and/or contriving results, notwithstanding that these may boost TV ratings. 

Having established that vital point, the Four Proposed RTV Programmes would objectively present the emotional issues and problems that some of the 140 x  Accepted Students experience if those issues/problems negatively impact the students on-going participation - "Attaining Teenager Life Skills" would present such social difficulties and how Indigenous Local Connectors sought to deal with them to facilitate on-going Student participation.

Viewers of "Attaining Teenager Life Skills" may find themselves not getting so 'worked up' in the future when 'small things' in their lives go awry, after they witness 'first hand' the unique Social Problems that many "Unlucky Australians", who live in some remote townships in Australia, are confronted by.

"Attaining Teenager Life Skills" could be 'a huge TV ratings success', but may not achieve the Aboriginal Teenager Life Skills Academic Forecast and some of the other Thirteen Deliverables.

Enable New Role Models In Isolated Country Towns By Building Upon Valuable Survival Skills -  Enhance Pride In These Towns  (4th of Nine Deliverables) notes that the 'Aboriginal Teenager Life Skills' Programme  employs the term 'township' not 'school' in order to foster pride in the Accepted Year 9 Aboriginal Students from all residents in the township with the hope that some will develop into role models for their towns that other students will try to emulate.  And as these students become adults, that other young adults in their towns will be influenced to emulate.

The message will need to be discreetly but effectively conveyed to residents in the Six Regional Townships, in particular to other students at the public schools in each of the Six Regional Townships (ie. Bourke Public School), that should the 'Aboriginal Teenager Life Skills' Programme prove successful that it will be propagated to more and more Disadvantaged  Aboriginal School Student because, if would therefore be a cost-effective Early Intervention Programme. 

Therefore, 140 x  Accepted Year 9 Aboriginal Students should -

(i)         be proudly supported by their respective townships; and

(ii)        not viewed by their respective townships as 'fortunate pawns' who are given special assistance merely to create a successful RTV programme.

Seeing what it is like to be an "Unlucky Australian" is one of Thirteen Deliverables From ''Aboriginal Teenager Life Skills'  Early Intervention Programme.