Megan Krakouer’s initial response to the Voice was a ‘hard No’, but two events over the last two months triggered her to change her mind.
Megan Krakouer’s initial response to the Voice proposal was a ‘hard No’. It seemed too mediocre to tackle the trauma she sees every day.
Megan Krakouer, a proud Menang Woman of the Noongar Nation, changed her mind and decided to vote Yes after attending the funerals of youths who had taken their own lives.But over the last two months, she has changed her mind. The trigger was when another two young Indigenous men she knew lost their lives to suicide.One 23-year-old – who she described as “the most beautiful, kind young man” – left behind two young children.
“And in terms of the nonsense to say we’re dividing a nation: the nation is already divided. Look at the Closing the Gap report.”Krakouer and Professor Maree Toombs, the two Aboriginal winners of this year’s Australian Mental Health Prize, have urged a Yes vote in this weekend’s referendum, warning that Indigenous people face suicide and mental illness at a higher rate than the rest of the country and need community-led solutions to turn those figures around.
“We know there’s no word for suicide in any Aboriginal language in Australia. But the rates of suicide for Aboriginal people are at least 2.5 times higher than the national average.” “It’s an awful feeling, and I’m a very strong person in my identity. I can’t imagine how others are feeling.” “She was languishing in the fact she didn’t know what to do. She said to me: we need to know how to do suicide intervention in real time. Our children don’t kill themselves between the hours of 9 and 5. We can’t rely on services; we need the skills in the community to do something about it at 2 in the morning.”
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