A Hand up not a Hand out !

The footings work has now progressed for the temporary accommodation and for the roof structure of the SuperAdobe (earth house) home at Bawoorrooga Community 100kms south east of Fitzroy Crossing in remote Western Australia. Tomorrow will be the concrete pour. The difference with the FISH Bawoorrooga self-help Sustainable Housing and Education Program compared with other housing initiatives in the north of Australia is that the community have been intimately involved in the design of their homes to make them culturally appropriate and family orientated. This is not something that is unusual in Australia for the average Australian, who are involved in the design of their new home, it is however something that is not done for the majority of Aboriginal people living in the north. Further, at Bawoorrooga the community are actually involved in the building process from the ground up so that they intimately know about the construction process and are skilled in the future to maintain their own home. The other element to the initiative is that the house will only cost just under $200,000 instead of $800,000 - $1M per house, which is what the government have been paying in the past. In the past that money did not get paid to the Aboriginal community but in the majority of cases is paid to a non-Aboriginal building company who do not even effectively employ and train local people to build their own houses. FISH are about creating new models of housing where we truly listen to, engage and empower Aboriginal people because they know what they want and how to solve their own challenges.....they just need to be given a hand up not a hand out ! Join with FISH and like their Facebook page and support their GoFundMe campaign for Bawoorrooga Community by clicking on the GoFundMe link. The alternative we have is to keep doing the same we have always done and expect a different outcome which continues today as noted by the ABC story yesterday from Darwin. Like me I hope you are tired of our taxes continuing to be spent inappropriately with no lasting positive change for Aboriginal people and therefore for Australia ! The FISH Bawoorrooga initiative is a model of a new way to go for Aboriginal housing with the first SuperAdobe home being built in the north by the community themselves.