hope for health

These beautiful Yolgnu ladies are seeking our support. 

Nourishing traditional bush foods have been replaced with shop food - white bread, margarine, tea, sugar and soft drinks - the result in Galwinku community and many other remote communities around Australia is that 1 in 2 adults have kidney disease and 1 in 3 adults have diabetes.

An encounter with good nutrition has inspired the Yolgnu ladies to make changes. They now have a solution and they need financial and/or social media networking support to make it happen.  

The ladies dream is to travel to Living Valley Springs Health Retreat for a 10 day program so they can learn how to get their health on track by improving their diet and then they want to share that knowledge with their community. 

This initiative is brilliant. It is empowering these women to take back their health care. Community led healing is what it's all about.

Regular readers here know that earlier this year my family and I spent time in Hope Vale a remote community four hours north of Cairns. This experience opened my eyes and my heart to both the harsh realities and the tremendous strength and resilience of the Guugu Yimithir people who opened their homes to us.

The food story is the same in Hope Vale as it is in so many communities. I left there feeling at a loss for how change could even begin. We have been home two months and I think about it most days. I met women in Hope Vale who want to do something about improving the nutritional value of the food people are eating. I started thinking about ways this could happen.

And then today I read about the Yolgnu ladies initiative on Chef Pete Evans facebook page. Perhaps this could be something other communities would like to do.

The ladies have 19 days to raise their funds before their crowd-funding appeal ends. 

If you can support them in any way financially $5, $10, $15 or hundreds or thousands it all adds up.

And if you can't offer money, then please share through your networks which only takes a few clicks and is equally valuable.

You can read more about this story on nutritional health guru Nora Gedgaudas' blog.

To learn more about the campaign and to donate go here.

These are mothers and grandmothers taking action to do something positive for themselves and their community. 

Go ladies go!