My Rural Story | Week Nine | Janie Dade-Smith

having an impact, was when I worked for the Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Worker Education Program. I wrote their curriculum which was the first one accredited in Queensland back in 1991. We used to go out into the communities and interview the students and we’d go out and teach the students in communities. They used to come in and we’d go out and actually run the programs. I think the generosity of spirit that we experienced in those communities was just overwhelming. It was humbling to actually be part of that process and to feel accepted as part of a remote community. They’d put on great big dinners up in the Torres Strait Islands with all that amazing coconut rice and all that fabulous food and they’d have dancing and just make us truly welcome. It was humbling to actually be part of that process and to feel accepted as part of a remote community when a lot of people in the Torres Straits speak English as a second or third language. It was a very satisfying experience, more than satisfying, it was a fundamentally changing experience to feel so accepted and to feel so incredibly inept at the same time about what we were doing.

‘Have an open heart, be willing to laugh at yourself because you

I think the second piece of advice that I’d give people is, if there are particular things that you really like then you should take them with you. Don’t expect that there’s going to be a coffee shop that has decaffeinatedlattesout therebecause, I can assure you, there won’t be. It’s probably, the bucket of Moccona, on a good day, or Nescafe on a bad day. So, you need to be able to take those sorts of things with you and be prepared for those sorts of events. I suppose the third piece of advice, especially for those going to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, is learn to stand back, shut up, listen and hear. Have an open heart, be willing to laugh at yourself because you are going to be in those cross cultural situations where you have no idea what’s going on most of the time. What has been one of your best experiences working in these remote communities? I think my best experience working in a rural, remote area in terms of actually are going to be in those cross cultural situations that you have no idea what’s going on’

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