Market Lane: You’ve taken on the role as co-chair alongside the wonderful William Tilmouth recently. So far, what does your role involve day-to-day and what responsibilities mean the most to you?
Evelyn Schaber: A big part of this is role is about supporting the CEO, the directions of the board, and our communities. Recently I supported a delegation of staff to go down to Canberra to meet with politicians to ask them about funding and the importance of Children’s Ground.
The role is also about reform and keeping systems accountable. It was 35 years since the Royal Commission for Aboriginal Deaths in Custody last week, and so William and I did an interview on the radio, as we’re still not meeting the recommendations that they originally sought 35 years ago. We’re still not being properly supported. We still have the lack of housing, overcrowding in housing, and a low socioeconomic status for the majority of our mob in the community.
Unless you’re privileged and have been given a decent education or been able to grow up knowing your culture, your language… you’ve got a lack of identity. There are so many day-to-day things that we Aboriginal people have to put up with, in regard to racism, the police, the age of criminal conviction. You can be convicted of a crime from 10; they’ve lowered the age to 10 [in the Northern Territory, but also in Queensland, New South Wales, Western Australia, and South Australia]. Which doesn’t allow kids to be kids and becomes a revolving door to the justice system.
My job is also about supporting our staff on the ground, making sure that people are strong. It just means being here and showing up; asking people how they are – because they’re doing the hard yards, on the ground in community. They’re teaching kids about language and ensuring that culture is imparted by elders and those people on the ground.
And do you think having the co-chair setup between you and William helps the work?
Yeah, I think it works really well. I come from an education background. I have trained and worked in that area and early childhood for a long, long time. And Willy comes from more of a social services background. We both bring different strengths.
What impact have you seen in the children and families that you work with at Children’s Ground?
I think one of the biggest changes is that whilst we’ve got a lot of women in Children’s Ground, we’re just starting to build up our young men and male elders within Children’s Ground itself. Our men have been really impacted, mainly because of the [2007 federal government] intervention.
Working with young men at Children’s Ground gives them agency, gives them identity, gives them the opportunity to be young leaders themselves. And to have them working alongside William – where, for instance, they’ll have meetings with other people, and feel confident to speak in meetings, when they’d never have done that before.
So, it’s giving them a platform to be able to speak their truth and their story. It gives them agency.
