Intercultural Wellbeing Foundation
Posted
1997. Latest Update August, 2014. Enabling wellbeing action among Indigenous and
Oppressed Small Minorities in the East Asia Oceania Australasia Region.
Actions address relief from trauma, oppression, poverty, sickness,
misfortune, destitution, illness, as well as help for sufferers of emotional,
domestic, physical, social and mental pressures, distress and trauma. WHO WE ARE
·
Issues WHO WE ARE
The Intercultural Wellbeing Foundation has been formed
by healers from the above focus groups and other intercultural healers from
other self-help and mutual help groups and networks in the Australasia East
Asia Oceania Region including UN-Inma, Connexion, Nexus Groups and Inma
Nelps. The Foundation is not connected with any political
group, faction or religion. It respects spiritual and cultural diversity. The
Total Care Foundation Inc. acts as an auspicing body for receiving donations
to the Intercultural Wellbeing Foundation. Following over twenty five years of action, the
Foundation has been formed to enable wellbeing action and to receive funding
from the public. Remoteness means that funding travel and communication are
major issues. To ensure the cultural integrity of wellbeing action and
process, non-government funding is rarely used. The focus of the Foundation's
action includes all forms of
wellness including (in no particular order)
cultural, clan, personal, family, mental, interpersonal, spiritual,
emotional, psychological, physical, communal, inter-family, habitat, village,
inter-village inter-religious, inter-clan, environmental, inter-factional,
economic, and inter-cultural wellness. KEY THEMES
THE
CURRENT SITUATION THE CURRENT SITUATION
Scattered throughout the East Asia Oceania Australasia
Region are people who are acting locally to address wellbeing issues. They
draw on their own local healing ways. As well, they link with others engaged in similar
action in other remote places. This dispersed, though linked healing action
has been evolving for over twenty five years. 'What works' is shared within
the network and adapted to meet local healing ways. SOME CURRENT ACTION
The Foundation sets up the possibilities for culturally
appropriate healing contexts and healing. Examples of current action: o Stopping petrol sniffing - even children as young as four
have been permanently brain damaged from this practice o Keeping adolescents and adults from being incarcerated in
prisons, lockups and mental institutions o Women having the ability to dissipate domestic and
community violence o People having the ability to mediate between dissenters as
well as resolve conflict ISSUES
o reconciliatory action and the rebuilding of family and community
relationships and links with those in their homelands in remote regions and
on offshore Islands o the sheer size and remoteness of the Australian bush o ongoing traumatizing sustained for over 100 years o having healing ways sensitive to local cultural ways o local people having cultural ambivalence and disinterest
in 'trauma service delivery' by 'bureaucracy backed experts' o the high costs involved in using a 'service delivery'
option o concern about 'strings attached' to government funding WELLBEING ACTION
The consensus of action is using the local natural and
traditional nurturers as the starting point. Locals already seek these
nurturers out for support. This communal-centred, self-help, and mutual help,
is in keeping with Indigenous and small minority traditional ways. Our
experience is that these natural nurturers can heal themselves and help
others heal themselves. The Foundation is providing possibilities of 'healing
action' to these local nurturers who are themselves in need. Refer Wounded Healer Wounded Group. They may
energise the evolution of more nurturers, who in turn may pass healing ways
on to others. The self-help network! SPREADING HEALING WISDOMS
Founding members, and other enablers linked to the
Foundation have been seeking out the healing wisdoms of indigenous and small
minorities in the Region for over thirty years. Extensive links have been
made with small local wellbeing action throughout the East Asia Oceania
Australasia region. In addition to the local nurturers, the Foundation may
be able to access wellbeing enablers, as resource people, from a diverse
array of cultural backgrounds, including: o West Papuan o Vietnamese o PNG Estuarine o Filipino o Hmong o Mongolian o Melanesian o Maori o East Timorese o Bougainvillian o Black South African o Chinese o Chilean o Cambodian o Anglo o Australian South Sea Islander o Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander All have extensive experience in linking with, and
enabling self-help among small minority people. They combine understandings
from tertiary education in psychotherapy with traditional healing ways. HOW THE FOUNDATION WORKS
Direct action is empowering - creating opportunities
for the local nurturer's self-healing, taking on ability over their own
lives, and the passing on of the local's micro-experiences to others -
towards communal help in resolving wellbeing issues. Both people involved in healing action and their focus
people are living in rural and remote bush contexts. Typically, little or no
mental health resources are available. The Foundation energises healing
contexts within remote communities or in nearby campout environments. Action
involves healing as a part of everyday interaction and celebration. Apart from prearranged or spontaneous healing, small
gatherings are energised; from four to six people through to twenty five or
more. Healing ways are used and attendees are invited to use these
micro-experiences with each other. At times the Foundation enables larger
healing gatherings called HealFests. These combine healing, celebration,
gathering and festivities. For example, members who helped constitute the
Foundation enabled the 'SE Asia Oceania Australasia Small Island Estuarine
and Coastal People Gathering' held in the Atherton Tablelands in 1994.
Further, they also energised the United Nations, the Australian Government,
Down to Earth (Vic) and others into providing funding for this Gathering - a
small local follow-on to a UN Conference in the Caribbean held earlier in
1994. Extensive healing was carried out during this Atherton Gathering.
People attending subsequently reported that they had passed on these healing
ways to others in their remote communities. Refer: o
The Second East Asia Oceania Australasia Trauma Survivors
Support Network Healing Sharing Gatherings FLAT ORGANISATION STRUCTURE
The Foundation is an informal flat structure. It
neither requires nor uses bureaucracy. Actions are naturally self-organising.
Local people engage in local healing action using local wisdoms and
knowledge. What is not working is modified so it does work or it is dropped.
What works is shared locally and becomes 'the local way' - 'policy' if you
like. Local healing people link with others in other remote
locations and success is shared. People take the successes they have heard
from other remote areas and try them out by adapting them to local ways and
contexts. In this way, the Foundation's action is neither
top-down or bottom-up. It is lateral. It is a loose matrix or network with
wellbeing as its function. Action has never been dependent or reliant on
Government funding. Action can complement Government services. However, the Foundation's actions have no part in a
'service delivery' model. The Foundation is modelled on and resonant with
Connexion (later called Nexus Groups) a self-help based charity registered in
NSW in the 1960's. It is also modelled on and supported by the Total Care
Foundation founded by Dr Neville Yeomans and others in NSW Australia in 1968.
The Foundation also has links to Wellnet, Un-Inma,
and Mingles. There are some professional workers and
ex-professionals with the Foundation who have valuable experience and
knowledge to bring to use. However, they work according to the Foundation's 'enabling' philosophy and reject the
one-sided 'doctor-patient' or 'expert service provider' type of relationship.
GLOBAL RELEVANCE
The Foundation is building small models of action with
the potential to heal the trauma and suffering following man-made disasters. For
example, the Foundation has links to the Bougainville Trauma Foundation which
is setting up possibilities to provide enabling action supporting large
numbers of survivors of torture and trauma following the Bougainville/PNG
Conflict late last Century. It is resonant with wider
healer networks known by some as Laceweb. The
Bougainville Survivors of Trauma Association |