The National NAIDOC Week Awards celebrate the outstanding contributions and excellence of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across ten award categories, including art, culture, education and training, sport, environment and leadership. The award winners were announced at the National NAIDOC Week Awards Ceremony on Saturday 6 July 2024 in Tarndanya (Adelaide) on Kaurna Yerta (Country).
Aunty Dulcie Flower AM won the NAIDOC 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award.
With a family from Erub (Darnley Island) in the Torres Strait, Auntie Dulcie is a Meriam woman that helped establish AMS Redfern in Sydney with the Redfern Aboriginal community, Aboriginal activists Gordon Briscoe and Shirley Smith (Mum Shirl). Ophthalmologist Professor Fred Hollows, paediatrician Professor Ferry Grunseit and medical student Paul Torzillo (now a professor) were also involved, along with the NSW Aboriginal Legal Service and South Sydney Community Aid.
AMS Redfern was established to overcome the neglect and racism Aboriginal people experienced in mainstream health services, where few Indigenous people could afford medical care. It was Australia’s first Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation and Dulcie Flower was the first Torres Strait Islander nurse to work there.
Clinics were held after working hours, from 6pm to 10pm, and all staff were initially unpaid. Hospitals, doctors, university students and community members donated medical equipment and medicines, beds, office supplies, fresh food and money to pay the rent.
“We were part of a process where our people could become who they really were. And we could provide a holistic health service with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples rather than for them,” Auntie Dulcie said.
Aunty Dulcie Flower’s contributions have been recognised on a national scale, culminating in her appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2019 for her significant service to the Indigenous community and her pivotal role in the 1967 Referendum Campaign.
Aunty Dulcie’s own words about her work and important trajectory:
“So I have met the most amazing people, mentored by the late, with respect, Faith Bandler, Pastor Doug Nicholls, Joe McGinness, Bert Groves, PeRl Gibbs, Aunt Geraldine Briggs, Gladys Elphick, Winnie Branson, and with colleagues including Joyce Clague, Evelyn Scott, Bruce MacGuiness, Ken Brindle, Isobel Kent, Sally Goold, Ray Peckham, Naomi Mayers and Sol Bellear.
My Torres Strait family has also mentored me and I am blessed to have the privilege of working with Aboriginal People and also with Torres Strait Islanders to gain justice and equality in this country. An important aspect has been encouraging non-Aboriginal students and professionals to work with our peoples not for them, in the ongoing struggles to achieve equality in access to the necessities of life, cultural acknowledgement and respect, freedom from racism, optimum standards of housing, health, education, clean water supply, and land ownership.”
Read more about Aunty Dulcie Flower AM by clicking on the official page of NAIDOC winners profiles HERE.
The sources of information for the above article are croakey.org and naidoc.org.au.