Blankets Urgently Needed in Central Australian Communities

https://www.waltja.org.au/

Yesterday I made a donation to Waltja.  They are raising money to purchase blankets for people in Central Australia. Donation platforms to assist people in dire need should not need to exist in Australia in 2017.  Especially if the cause is a flood.  Please support this cause.

Waltja

Waltja Tjutangku Palyapayi Aboriginal Corporation (Waltja) is a community-based organisation.  They are an independent organisation and receive funds from the Commonwealth and State and Territory Departments.

Waltja Tjutangku Palyapayi is in the Luritja language. It literally means “families, for everybody, really good together”, or the short version, “doing good work with families”.

Waltja works with Aboriginal families in remote Central Australian Communities. They service 900,000 kilometres squared.  To put this into perspective, the Prime Minister’s electorate of Wentworth can fit into this area 23,684 times. Waljta services an area approximately as big as the O’Connor electorate  – the third largest electorate in Australia.

They coordinate a range of projects: Aged Care and Disability, Caring for Elders, Disability Bush Service, Emergency Relief Fund for Vulnerable Groups, Family Mental Health, Kapaliku ngurra yirritinguru – A Community Based Arts Project, Money Management Information, Tjutangku Tjukurrpa – Social Enterprise and Reconnect Youth Support Program.

Traditional Aboriginal Women work across various remote communities and they work across nine languages.  In 2014, they received the award for “the best-governed Indigenous organisation in Australia.”

Today, they need your help.

Waltja Warm Blankets – The Donation Plea

They have a Pozible project to share the story of Central Australians affected and to attract donations.  A once in 50-year flood has wiped out the supply of warm blankets. Temperatures can plunge to below freezing in this area of Australia.

It gets cold in the desert

This excerpt from their Pozible Donations page explains further:

When you think of Central Australia you probably think of a hot dry desert.

But come winter, the desert is anything but hot.  Nights drop below zero and the orange sands turn white with frost. Because of the cold, each year there are elderly or vulnerable people who don’t survive.

But not this year, not on our watch!

Waltja always puts extra money and supplies aside to be ready for the winter months, but to at the start of the year, Central Australia experienced a one-in-50-year flooding.  We had as much rain in two and half weeks than we would normally have across the whole year.

Roads were cut and many people who had been travelling to town for shopping or visiting family were stranded with nothing but the clothes on their back. So we did what anyone would do – we cracked open our supplies put aside for winter to help the many women and children, and elderly, who’d become trapped and homeless by the flooding.

Click Here to Share the Warmth this Winter

Share the Warmth this Winter by Waltja

When you think of Central Australia you probably think of a hot dry desert. But come winter, the desert is anything but hot. Nights drop below zero and the orange sands turn white with frost. Because of the cold, each year there are elderly or vulnerable people who don’t survive.

Waltja needs to raise $75,000 dollars for 3000 blankets including transport.  To date, they have only raised $16,154.00

Demand Better!

After you donate, please write to the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Senator Nigel Scullion and cc the Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mr Bill Shorten. Please enquire why, after a natural disaster, a pledge campaign is necessary to raise funds for blankets. Please ask why the funds are not readily available from the Government. Also, insist upon immediate action.

I just did.

In 2017, the right to keep warm is a basic right. This is simply not good enough.