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The residential program addresses the issues of alcohol abuse that continues to devastate Patrick’s people.
For the Gija, alcohol abuse has cost too many young lives. “We are having funerals, funerals, funerals, all the time,” says Community Chairwoman Shirley Purdie. Although Warmun is a “dry” community, elders like Shirley and Patrick say tougher licensing laws in Western Australia are needed to stop sly grog runners.
Adult education is a powerful weapon in the elders fight against this abuse. In this cause the Gija are aided by their longstanding relationship with “Mary MacKillop’s Mob”, the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart, who for more than 30 years have lived with them.
At Warmun the Sisters established Ngalangangpum (“Mother and Child”) School: a model of “two way learning” where formal education is combined with the Gija determination that their language, songs and dances be included in the curriculum.
When alcohol abuse became rife in Warmun, the Gija called back one of the school’s first teachers, Sister Theresa Morellini, to help. In the spirit of Mary MacKillop, Sr Theresa heard the people’s need. She and another sister established a safe house for women and children.
“I came back as a pastoral worker,” says Sr Theresa. She soon realised that to be effective she needed training in indigenous counselling. “So I went to Canada and trained in the drugs and alcohol counselling program there as the issues were similar for our indigenous people.”
Today Sr Theresa facilitates three drug and alcohol workshops a year at the Mirrilingki Spiritual Centre run by the Broome Diocese. She is a sensitive link between the people and the social agencies that come to Warnum. ”I do the follow up work with the people.”
She has also been instrumental in training Gija elders Patrick Mung Mung, Mary Thomas and Betty Carrington as team leaders in the program. ”We work together,” says Sr Theresa. “At the end of the program we do therapeutic work in the bush where can use healing, culture, as well as psychology. We’re also looking at where we can set up a healing place here for the people. This is the work the Gija calls me to do.”
Catholic Mission’s National Director Martin Teulan said the pastoral need of Aboriginal people in the East Kimberley is a call to Christ that the Sisters of St Joseph have been answering for over 45 years: since they set up their first school at Wyndham in 1964.
“In this year when Mary MacKillop is canonised as Australia’s first saint we pay tribute to the caring missionary work of the Josephites with the Aboriginal people of the East Kimberley region. The Sisters have worked with the local people in the spirit of justice, reconciliation and peace. The deep love and trusting relationships Aboriginal people have formed with them is a testimony to this mission.”
Mr Teulan said the ageing of the religious sisters however also sees a growing need to replace their numbers with lay workers. “Today there is a shortage of pastoral associates in the Broome Diocese that needs to be urgently addressed if the faith missions the Sisters of St Joseph have pioneered with Aboriginal people is to be carried into the future.
“There is a real need for volunteers for practical and pastoral work. I urge anyone who believes they are suited to this calling to contact the Kimberley Lay Missionary Association (http://www.broomediocese.org/volunteering.html )."
Mr Teulan asked for financial support for the work with Aboriginal people. “I also urge Catholic Mission donors to financially support our Home Mission Fund. There is a great need for funds to undertake many worthwhile projects with the indigenous people. These projects are led by priests, sisters and wonderful Aborigina
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Sister Theresa with alcohol intervention program leaders
Mary Thomas, Betty Carrington and Patrick Mung Mung | l elders.”
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