Calls for 24/7 safe space for Alice Springs kids

A community collective in Alice Springs is calling for a around-the-clock safe space for Indigenous children to stop youth ‘running amok’ in the town.

A three-day community forum in Alice Springs has seen a spate of solutions suggested to curb current youth ‘running amok’ in the town.

The forum, held last week, was open to all members of the community in order to discuss the current issues in the town, and investigate a way to get kids back onto country and begin healing intergenerational trauma.

It has now come out with six proposed solutions, including a 24/7 safe space for kids, better accessibility to local facilities, support for local events to engage children, support to address intergenerational trauma in culturally sensitive ways, a pick-up and drop-off service for kids and support for children to learn from their elders.

Alice Springs based Yipirinya School principal Gavin Morris with students Malikai Hayes, Keylin Peters, Adrian Nelson and Jahquille Stuart. Picture: Grenville Turner

It comes as NT Labor MP Marion Scrymgour also backs calls to introduce a safe space at Yipirinya School, and will meet with Principal Gavin Morris as early as Saturday to fast-track the proposal.

Dr Morris hopes to see housing for 24 students and some staff members at the school, after reporting in The Australian that revealed children were sometimes returned to school in handcuffs or wearing ankle bracelets and how a 12-year-old and his mates led teachers on a wild pursuit through the town in a stolen minibus.

Ms Scrymgour said the plans were essential in order to get youth “re-engaged” in the education system.

“We can’t have another generation that becomes illiterate and disengaged from the system and then just ends up on the scrap heap,” she told The Australian.

“We’ve got to give young people some hope that they can live somewhere safely but they need to re-engage in the school system.”

Arrernte custodian Peltherre Chris Tomlins has spearheaded the moves to get kids back on country.

Arrernte custodian Peltherre Chris Tomlins said getting a safe space and changing the narrative around Indigenous children was the priority for the community.

“We need to change the narrative about the kids. When kids come in from out of town they are followed around in shops and treated as if they will steal,” he said.

“We need the right supports in place for a community-controlled space where Elders and Community members exercise self determination to look after our kids, and tell them about our cultural heritage.”

He said of the Indigenous children in the town, only a small number were “running amok” continuously, and most of those were children born during the 15 years of the intervention.

Mr Thomlins said the majority of the children “running amok” were on the streets for a reason, and needed to connect back to country. Picture: Mark Brake, Daily Telegraph.

“When you look at Alice Springs it’s only about 20 per cent of kids that are running amok and they were kids born during the intervention, we’re getting blamed for things we had no control over,” he said.

“A lot of these kids are out there for a reason, there’s about 620 mums and dads just sitting in prison.”

“They’re creating an environment for kids to get into trouble, it’s systematic, and it’s not nice. We want the larger community to be conscious of it, because right now they’re just going ‘yeah lock them up’. People say this and they don’t know what they’re agreeing too.”

Members of the community, including Ngarla Kunoth-Monks of Utopia, had spoken about the impact of the Intervention.

“With the Northern Territory intervention many homelands closed and a lot more people then came into Alice Springs – so our kids have been dispossessed of their identity, who they are and where they come from. Homelands are important,” she said.

Mr Tomlins said the initial solutions suggested were the first step on getting kids back on country and ultimately gaining self-determination, with pop-up events around town and an awareness campaign planned to be launched in the next few weeks.

Mr Tomlins said in another three weeks the group would meet for a debrief and feedback session, with forums then held every two months for the next year to assess the impact of proposed changes.

“Intergenerational trauma is the cause of all this and we want to put an end to it and get everybody to work together, so we can take responsibility for each other, our kids and our country,” he said.