Medicines Australia and The Jimmy Little Foundation join forces to give our Indigenous Australians a wonderful opportunity to grow stronger and live - longer.
Medicines Australia has donated $1.2 million dollars to the Jimmy Little Foundation for two wonderful projects being a mobile renal truck which is currently being being built and will be operated by the Western Desert Nganampa Walytja Palyantjakt Tjutaku Aboriginal Corporation.
The other project is the musical education program Thumbs Up! which promotes the message of Good Health = Long Life!
Jimmy Little’s music career is well documented but his ongoing work for his Indigenous brothers and sisters is not as well known.
In 2002, at the height of his revitalized career Jimmy was struck down with kidney failure and Jimmy began a regime of self-administered peritoneal dialysis. He chose this method because it meant he could still travel and he began visiting communities showing others that there was a life after a diagnosis of kidney failure. He received a life saving transplant in 2004 and this crystallized the future direction he would take in helping his people.
The Jimmy Little Foundation was established to help provide a healthier future for Indigenous Australians and initially worked with renal patients in and around Alice Springs who were dialyzing at the largest dialysis centre in the Southern hemisphere. This facility is now overflowing; so many people with renal disease living in a 600km radius of Alice must leave home, family, country and their dreaming and are now relocated to Darwin or Adelaide. It is a heartbreaking situation for the patient and their families.
Thanks to the Medicine’s Australia funding of the renal truck patients will now be able travel home for respite visits, offering stability to the patient and giving family members especially children the opportunity to see what their family members have to endure on a dialysis machine just to stay alive. Most children witness a parent or relative leaving home to go for dialysis sometimes never to return.
Education of Indigenous children is where the second part of the Medicines Australia funding comes into play. Thumbs up! is a nutrition/education program to help guide children to choose better food and drink options for their health and longevity. The program encourages them to drink more water – and consume less sugary fizzy drink and eat more fruit and veggies rather than fast “junk” food. Thumbs up uses music to engage children aged 5 – 15, writing good tucker healthy food songs as well as employing social networking sites that will allow children in communities all over Australia to interact by uploading their songs, photos, recipes and share their experience of the Thumbs Up! Visit.
“On behalf of all Indigenous Australians I would like to sincerely thank Medicines Australia for their donation to the Jimmy Little Foundation. The money will enable us to fund two very worthy projects that will help many of my countrymen and women achieve a healthier future”.
Dr Jimmy Little AO
“Our vision is that good food will become part of Indigenous children’s vocabulary and healthy food choices, part of their `psyche from an early age. From the results of other music based learning programs we are confident it will eventually bring about changes in their attitudes”
Graham “Buzz” Bidstrup CEO Jimmy Little Foundation
‘This is a dream come true for our committee and patient community. Many patients have not got home to country for many years because of distance and their need for dialysis every second day. This project will have a huge impact on the quality of life of Senior Western Desert people and on the future of communities.’
Sarah Brown, manager of WDNWPT