Aussies with heart
Meet three dedicated women determined to create a better future locally and around the world.
Dr Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr Baumann AM SENIOR AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR
The sun was setting beyond the Canberra hills when Dr Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr Baumann stood to speak at the Australian of the Year Awards. A hush fell as she made her way to the stage, her dress the colours of the landscape along the Daly River where she’s spent much of her life. Miriam is 73, a Ngangikurungkurr woman from a community called Nauiyu in the Northern Territory. Ngangikurungkurr, she explains, means “deep water sounds”.
She speaks of dadirri, the practice of “deep listening and silent, still awareness,” which she first shared “as a gift” with the Australian people back in 1988. “Dadirri is our Aboriginal spirituality,” she tells The Weekly, “but it’s yours as well. We’ve been smothered by challenges we face day in and day out and sometimes we forget who we are … Dadirri is about bringing people back into reality, to who they are, their being.”
Miriam was born, near where she lives today, beside the Daly River. The second eldest of seven, she spent much of her childhood travelling through the Territory with her Uncle Attawoomba Joe, a police tracker, and her Aunt Nellie. She was educated in public schools, Catholic schools and on country with her family, where she learnt to speak four languages. But her aunt, uncle and her parents had passed away by her early twenties and she went home to raise her siblings and cousins.
Miriam was the first Indigenous person in the Northern Territory to become a fully qualified teacher. She was principal of the Catholic school in her home community before being appointed to the federal government’s advisory body, the National Indigenous Council. She still works part-time in the local school.
“The teachers can call me any time,” she says. “I do part-time work for the school but I’m here 24/7 for whoever needs me.”
In 2013, she established the Miriam Rose Foundation to drive grassroots reconciliation and support young people in her community who struggle to find employment and direction.
“A lot of young people are feeling lost,” she says. “We lost seven people through suicide. The last one who took his life was my nephew. He was 22. I set up the foundation so I could walk with the young people in my community.”
Now is the time, she says, for all Australians to walk beside Indigenous people.
“We have lived in this great country for many thousands of years,” she explained in her acceptance speech, “and 200 years ago we began to interact with white fellas … We have adapted to a new way of living. We learnt to speak your
English fluently. For years we have walked on a one-way street to learn the white people’s way. I’ve learnt to walk in two worlds and live in towns and cities, and even worked in them. Now is the time for you to come closer, to understand us and how we live, and what our needs are. I hope you will meet us half way.”
– by Samantha Trenoweth
To learn more about Miriam’s work, visit miriamrosefoundation.org.au
Rosemary Kariuki LOCAL HERO
The first time Rosemary Kariuki’s ex-husband hit her, she thought she was dreaming. On the second occasion she fought back, vowing to kill him if he ever beat her again.
“He never did,” says Australia’s newly-crowned Local Hero of the Year, honoured for her work with other migrants facing domestic violence or financial distress. “But there was a lot of other abuse too, psychological and emotional. Because I went through that, I didn’t want it to happen to anybody else,” Rosemary explains, her rich laugh rumbling all the way from her feet to her colourful headdress.
Fleeing bloody tribal clashes in her native Kenya, she arrived in Australia as a refugee with her two sons in 1999. At the beginning, life was lonely for a woman who’d grown up with 16 siblings and an even bigger extended family – but Rosemary was armed with boundless courage, plus a suitcase of presents for the friends she hoped to make.
How to meet and help other isolated migrants? Simple, join forces with the African Women’s Group to start the hugely successful annual African Women’s
Dinner Dance, now in its 14th year. “Food and dancing are in our blood, so I knew I could reach people that way,” chuckles Rosemary, 60, who now works as a multicultural community liaison officer with Parramatta Police in NSW. “That first dance, 400 women came and we had a talk from a domestic violence survivor. That’s how people started to get to know there are services out there to help them. The following Monday, 20 African women reported to police they had been abused.”
Proudly, the grandmother-of-two (who also founded the African Village Market and a rural cultural exchange program) adds: “The women I helped are now helping other women. Once you empower a woman, give her information, give her a job, that woman will spread the word to everyone else with ears!”
Today, thanks to Rosemary’s newfound fame, even more people are reaching out for her support. “It’s another world,” she smiles, confiding that Oprah is her hero. “She shows it doesn’t matter which age you are, what country you are in, just follow your dream and never give up on it.” – by Jenny Brown
“That woman will spread the word to everyone else.”
Isobel Marshall YOUNG AUSTRALIAN OF THE YEAR
Nobody should be forced to drop out of school, leave a job or be stigmatised simply because they menstruate. That’s a no-brainer for Young Australian of the Year Isobel Marshall and her best friend, Eloise Hall, who are using their business savvy to fight “period poverty” around the world.
“On a trip to Africa and India, we met girls who had to sell sex to be able to buy sanitary pads,” Isobel, 22, says passionately. “Others walk three hours every day to get to school, with nothing but dirty rags to soak up the blood. They have no pain-relief for period cramps, and can’t even sit down to rest beside the road because it’s too dangerous. Stories like that were incredibly eye-opening. Seeing the problems first-hand fuelled our passion to go ahead and make hygiene products more available everywhere.”
Isobel and Eloise were only 18 – both recently graduated captains of Adelaide’s Walford Anglican School for Girls – when they crowd-funded $56,000 to launch TABOO, a brand of ethically-sourced, high quality organic pads and tampons. Their social enterprise business model donates all net profits to fight period poverty not only in Sierra Leone and Uganda, but also closer to home. TABOO now runs a local outreach program supplying free menstrual hygiene products to First Nations women and domestic violence survivors housed at crisis shelters in South Australia.
“Unexpectedly, we discovered it’s an issue that needs addressing in this country as well,” says Isobel, who has just deferred her medicine and surgery degree at the University of Adelaide to concentrate on TABOO for the coming year.
Their crusade is not just about supplying vital feminine hygiene.
Additionally, it enables young women in developing countries to take full advantage of education opportunities, instead of dropping out of school when they start menstruating.
“It’s great to see those tangible results,” says Eloise, 21, who narrowly missed joint nomination for Young Australian of the Year due to an unfortunate timing issue. “When a girl has access to period products, she has the chance to stay in education and create a better future for herself and for her family.”
Studying for a double degree in business and international relations, Eloise is the commercial brain behind TABOO, according to her bestie. “But at the end of the day, it’s not about either of us, it’s about our mission,” smiles Isobel, who was inspired to study medicine by Australian doctor Catherine Hamlin’s pioneering women’s health work in Africa.
“We believe passionately that nobody should be disadvantaged by menstruation, a totally natural process that we need to reproduce as a species,” says Eloise. “There’s a lot of power in the structure of a social enterprise, so we’re really excited to grow TABOO as far as it can go.”
– by Jenny Brown
“It’s an issue that needs addressing in this country.”