Tag / Indigenous

by brandsa2018

Largest indigenous health program based in SA

Adelaide’s renowned health precinct is home to some of the nation’s best researchers fighting shocking statistics showing indigenous Australians have a 10 year lower life expectancy.

The precinct’s Aboriginal Health Research Unit is now the largest dedicated indigenous health program in Australia – and possibly the world.

“This is extremely unusual, all of our work is focused on the health of Aboriginal and Torres Straits Islander people and we focus our work on things most important to their communities,” says Professor Alex Brown.

When Prof Brown was appointed to lead the unit at the new world-class South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) in 2012 there was only one another staff member. Now it has 58 staff with half of the team indigenous.

“Identifying and supporting people to develop career opportunities in research is part of our core foundation,” Prof Brown says. “It makes us better, it makes it more real, more translatable in terms of policy and practice and keeps us accountable to what communities want us to deliver.”

When Prof Brown was first approached about the job seven years ago, he saw a rare opportunity to establish this unique Aboriginal response in the heart of the precinct near the River Torrens. Most research in this vital area was usually retrofitted at an existing institution.

Professor Alex Brown leads the Aboriginal Health Research Unit, one of the e largest programs of its kind in Australia.

“We went from one staff to 50 staff fairly quickly and all because people have realised how unique an opportunity this is to make a substantial difference in Aboriginal health,” he says. “We started with asking the community what their research priorities were.”

The Wardliparingga team in the unit, named after a Kaurna term meaning ‘house river place’, has particularly focused on finding ways to reduce the impact and incidence of chronic disease along with understanding psychosocial determinants of illness and health.

It has also focused on determining how disparities in access to quality treatments and services can be improved to drive better health outcomes.

The disparity in health between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people is still significant, not just in terms of life expectancy, but generally in rates of heart and kidney disease, diabetes, cancer and depression.

Prof Brown says the unit is currently running about 40 different research projects and “we would be in the top group of researchers in terms of Aboriginal health across the country in what we do, and the sheer size of us as a group, we’re one of the best”.

He has been at the forefront in tackling the issue since he first trained in medicine in New South Wales consistently working to engage governments and agencies in making change.

Professor Alex Brown addresses media.

Prof Brown completed a Masters of Public Health and worked in Alice Springs managing the local Centre for Disease Control before starting in research, earning a PhD exploring the links between psychosocial stress, depression and heart disease in indigenous men. He is now also a professor of Aboriginal Health at the University of Adelaide.

At SAHMRI, Prof Brown is proud of the work the unit has achieved in policy recommendations and “we’ve trained a whole generation of young Aboriginal people to pursue careers in research”.

He is likely to have further impact on national change after being named as co-chair of a new advisory board overseeing the allocation of $160 million in national funding for indigenous health research announced in February by the Federal Government.

As part of the funding, $35 million was earmarked to develop a vaccine to eliminate Rheumatic heart disease, a complication of bacterial infections of the throat and skin. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are 64 times more likely to develop the disease than non-indigenous people.

Prof Brown also sits on a range of national committees, including the Heart Foundation and the Cardiac Society Indigenous Cardiovascular Council and was previously a member of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Equality Council. Yet his core work is still firmly in SA.

“This is exactly the right place for us to be, we’re in the middle of the country, we can commute anywhere, we can access metropolitan, regional and remote communities we want to work across,” he says.

“There’s a single health system, single administrative structure and we’re in the heart of the medical research precinct…. Aboriginal health is right in the heart of it, it couldn’t be in a better place.”

Industry in focus: Health

Throughout the month of April, the state’s health industry will be explored as part of I Choose SA.

South Australia’s health sector is among the best in the world, renowned for developing new and advanced technologies and research outcomes. Our health industry infrastructure is world-class, providing new pathways and job opportunities, as well as a growing potential for health tourism.

Read more health stories here.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

Indigenous communities benefit from new native fruit yoghurt range

Two South Australian food producers have partnered to create a new yoghurt range incorporating native Australian produce, providing jobs and support for an indigenous community involved in the fruit picking.

Fleurieu Milk Company and Something Wild have joined forces to launch a range of native Australian fruit yoghurts featuring Kakadu plum, muntrie, Davidson plum and quandong – bush fruits that have been eaten for thousands of years.

Owned by the Motlop family, brothers Steven and Daniel, and fellow former AFL player Danyle Pearce, Something Wild supplies indigenous ingredients to restaurants and consumers, often engaging Aboriginal communities to help supply the produce.

The Kakadu plum yoghurt, made with Fleurieu Milk’s fresh milk and cream sourced from the Myponga area, was the first tub to launch in the range.

The native fruit yoghurt range is available at independent supermarkets, the Adelaide Central Market and selected farmer’s markets. Photo by Myles Quist.

The Kakadu plums – which have the highest vitamin C content of any fruit in the world – are picked by Aboriginal women in the Northern Territory community of Wadeye.

Something Wild director Danyle Pearce says the women receive an income from harvesting the wild fruit, which can be found growing in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.

“The Wadeye ladies up there have an absolute abundance of Kakadu plum. The Kakadu plum is the most well known native fruit in Australia but there’s not really many resources going around about what to use it for,” he says.

“We have a sustainable ecosystem here in Australia … but I don’t think we’ve tapped into what we have here in our own backyard. You just have to have a look for it and you can find it. What we’ve done, the story behind it, it’s a great product and we hope people really get behind it.”

Once the plums are picked by the Wadeye women they are pureed and sent to Fleurieu Milk’s Myponga factory to be made into the 125g yoghurt tubs.

“We flew all the (Wadeye) ladies down here and we took them on a tour of Fleurieu Milk and showed them everything we’re doing with their fruit,” Danyle says. “They absolutely love the produce and love the final outcome.”

The other native fruits in the range – muntrie, quandong and Davidson plum – are also harvested by Something Wild from their native areas.

The muntries (small red and green berries) and the peach-like quandongs are gathered in SA, while the Davidson plums are sourced from Queensland where the fruit is grown.

Fleurieu Milk sales and marketing manager Clay Sampson says the native fruit yoghurt range is first of its kind in Australia and was born from a desire to incorporate bush food into an everyday product.

“We were looking at different yoghurt flavours … and obviously the yoghurt market is saturated. We wanted to do something totally different,” he says.

“We think it’s a great story in terms of cross promotion and the harvesting of the fruit with the indigenous community.”

The native fruit yoghurts are available in independent supermarkets in SA, the Fleurieu Milk and Something Wild stalls at the Adelaide Central Market, and farmer’s markets at the Adelaide Showground and Willunga.

The yoghurts are also distributed in the NT, with plans to take the product to other states such as WA in the future. Part of the proceeds of sales go to the Little Heroes Foundation.

Header image features Fleurieu Milk Company sales and business relations manager, Kym Koster, left, former AFL footballer and Little Heroes Foundation ambassador Tony Modra, Something Wild director Danyle Pearce, and Fleurieu Milk sales and marketing manager Clay Sampson at Something Wild’s Adelaide Central Market stall.

Visit I Choose SA to meet the people building business and industry in SA, and to find out how your choices make a difference to our state.

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by brandsa2018

Lattes and pastries in Tailem Bend? You betcha

Quality coffee, freshly-baked lemon meringue tarts and almond croissants are not usually associated with a truck stop town like Tailem Bend.

The rural service town – 100km southeast of Adelaide and often referred to as the gateway to Melbourne – is more known for its service stations and semi-trailers.

But recently Tailem Bend has been growing into its new identity, largely due to the opening of the $110m Bend Motorsport Park, set to revive the local economy by boosting employment and visitation to the town.

Small business owners Amy and Neil Chinsami are also contributing to the changing face of the sleepy railway town, thanks to the popularity of their popular main street coffee shop, The Little Local Co.

It’s almost impossible to walk out of Little Local Co without a baked treat.

“We have customers who say they had never been to the main street before now, and others who say they didn’t even know there was a main street,” says Amy, who grew up in the small Aboriginal community of Raukkan.

“People are now turning off the highway to have a coffee and locals say they have been waiting for somewhere you can just sit with a good coffee and cake.

“It’s made an impact on the community.”

The Little Local Co opened in late 2017, but has already built a strong following and sound reputation for quality coffee and delectable sweet treats.

The coffee shop’s popularity has prompted Amy and Neil to prepare for the opening of their second Little Local Co establishment, The Kitchen, along Princes Highway.

Amy cooks many of the baked goods herself, and sources other treats from local bakeries.

The pair are expecting to open The Kitchen’s doors in August and say the café will specialise in fresh and local meals, inspired by their Aboriginal and Fijian backgrounds.

“The Kitchen will be the only café on the highway,” says Amy, who draws inspiration from her community, Raukkan, considered to be the heart of Ngarrindjeri land.

“We infuse wattle seed from the Coorong and Raukkan area in our cold brew,” she says.

“It’s something that is part of my community and my land and I want to expose others to these new flavours.”

Neil is Fijian/Indian with the handcrafted chocolates on offer incorporating Fijian brown sugar and cacao.

The Little Local Co’s coffee shop is well known for its baked goods and coffee, from local premium roaster Cirelli.

The lemon meringue bombs are a hit with customers.

Amy’s own lemon meringue bombs just about fly off the counter, as do a range of other sweet treats such as orange almond cakes and chocolate brownies.

Amy and Neil began their Little Local Co journey as a small catering company and pop-up coffee cart, making appearances at events and local footy matches.

“We had both loved food and coffee and had always dreamed of having our own café one day,” Amy says.

“It took a few years of planning and researching and having a look at potential places in Murray Bridge, but nothing suited us.

“Then we were driving through Tailem Bend’s main street one day and saw a tiny shopfront. We just knew it would be an amazing space for a coffee shop.”

Amy says there is more to Tailem Bend than meets the eye.

“I think people do just see it as a place that you pass by when you’re wanting to get to somewhere else. But if you come into the heart of the community … there are no empty shops in the main street and I think that’s really great.

“There is so much happening in Tailem Bend.”

Header photo courtesy of Glenn Power.

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