After the tragic death of the young Thomas Hickey in Sydney, riots broke out between Aboriginal people and police, taking over first place in the media. The Aboriginal community expressed anger and grief, and resentment for his history of discrimination and disadvantage. 700 km on the North coast, a small tribe is quietly settled in Yamba, showing the ability to maintain their identity in an urban situation. All Citizens - Aborigines Infant Mortality Rate (per thousand born) 5 - 19 Unemployment 7.5% - 20% Personal Income ($ per week) 292 - 190 Education (15-year-olds in full-time education) 91.5% - 73.7% In Prison (per thousand individuals) 1.1 - 7.6 Living in Poverty (per thousand families) 2.3 - 38.9
A slum corner of Redfern, central Sydney, Australia. Terrace houses, known as "The Block". Expensive area. Except for the block. Aboriginal housing. Dispossessed people. Broken. Police on their backs. Lack of opportunities. Fracture. Poverty. Drink. Crime. Violence.
ZEF0023360 © Franco Zecchin
Redfern has been at the heart of Sydney's Aboriginal community for generations. Large sections of property - known locally as 'The Block' - were bought with the help of the federal government in the early 1970s. The inner city district is close to the ce
ZEF0023368 © Franco Zecchin
Inner city Sydney Redfern, Australia. Feb 14, Valentine's Day: An Aboriginal youth- Thomas "T J" Hickey, aged 17 years. Riding his bicycle in a reckless manner, he fell off and impaled himself on a fence. Rumours spread like wildfire through the ghetto that the youth
ZEF0023361 © Franco Zecchin
Sydney, Redfern suburb, Australia. Man holding protest poster. TJ was staying with Aunt Bowie (Virginia Hickey) at the time of his death. She moved away from the block years ago for the health of her children and all the other little ones she looks after. She lives in a flat administered by t
ZEF0023365 © Franco Zecchin
Sydney, Redfern suburb, the Block. interior. Aboriginal unemployed man and his dog, sleeping. A large number of the group are in self-imposed exile in remote locations where there are no jobs and no hope of learning sufficient job skills to compete for jobs in a modern economy. And they are paid not to wor
ZEF0023373 © Franco Zecchin
Sydney, Redfern suburb. The tiny back yard where the children play is open soil. Sewage from nearby properties leaks out of it when it rains, causing infections, and skin and eye disorders.
ZEF0023364 © Franco Zecchin
Sydney, Redfern suburb. The abuse of alcohol and drugs have made many Aboriginal households extremely dangerous places. The average lifespan for Aboriginal women is 63 compared to 82 for their non-indigenous counterparts. Indigenous women are 50 times mo
ZEF0023359 © Franco Zecchin
Sydney, Redfern suburb. The Block. Years of pandering to Aboriginals with massive welfare payments and special privileges while simultaneously fuelling their resentment by dwelling on past grievances, blew up in the faces of the social engineers, do-gooders
ZEF0023363 © Franco Zecchin
Redfern railway station, Sydney, Australie. Most of the Aborigines in the city area of Sydney are living in Redfern. Although almost without exception they identify themselves completely as Aborigines. Many come from a generation of families which have, until recently,
ZEF0023372 © Franco Zecchin
Sydney, Redfern suburb. Max Eulo, an elderly man who practices traditional ceremonies. The Redfern Aboriginals hang on, however dispossessed of dignity. By colonialism, unemployment, crime, drugs and racism.
ZEF0023358 © Franco Zecchin
Sydney, Redfern suburb. Police patrolling the Block. All research shows that a dominant police presence and methods are a self-fulfilling prophecy of violence and conflict as a state-sponsored symbol of ultimate force.
ZEF0023371 © Franco Zecchin
Sydney, Redfern suburb. Against the background of encouragement given to Aboriginal languages and the shocking failure to enforce school attendance, some 80 per cent of Aboriginal children are illiterate. Levels of domestic violence, child abuse, sexual abuse
ZEF0023367 © Franco Zecchin
Sydney, Redfern suburb. The place of death of the Aboriginal teenager Thomas Hickey. Ralph, a local leader, says: " He was killed either by the police or by the fear of the police. That fear is one that every last Aboriginal kid in Redfern feels palpaply.
ZEF0023362 © Franco Zecchin
Sydney, Redfern suburb, Australia. The recently opened Redfern Community Centre has targeted programs, such as after school care and employment services, to address the needs in the local area. The centre will be managed jointly by Maori and Aboriginal communities
ZEF0023369 © Franco Zecchin
Sydney Redfern Community Centre. The key to breaking the cycle of degradation is education. If 80 per cent of Aboriginal children are illiterate then governments are confronted with a massive problem to bring Aboriginal education up to the level of the r
ZEF0023370 © Franco Zecchin
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Ngaru village, Yamba NSW. Traditionally the Bundjalung people occupied land north of the Clarence River. A smaller tribe, the Yaegl, occupied the coastal area where Iluka, Yamba and Maclean now exist.13 aboriginal families are living in the village.
ZEF0023394 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW. The Aborigines come into the settlement from the desert because it is the source of their monthly cheques from the government.
ZEF0023392 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba, NSW, Australia Philip "Yogi Bear" smoking at home. Three decades of land-claim, 'stolen generation', dispossession and even genocide propaganda trumpeted by the black aristocracy, academics and media have imbued many Aborigines with feelings
ZEF0023388 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba, NSW, Australia. The Aborigines use space with freedom and a tolerant attitude.
ZEF0023378 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW. Fred drying the washing.
ZEF0023395 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba, NSW, Australia. Australia has two separate histories—one white, one black. The former is of a difficult but ultimately successful settlement of a harsh continent, of the exploitation of rich agricultural and mineral resources, of the creation o
ZEF0023385 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW, Australia. A group of young men looking for alcohol.
ZEF0023389 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW. A group of Aboriginal people are peacefull and without the rage in their eyes.
ZEF0023377 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba, NSW, Australia. Leslie's home is often full of children belonging to different families.
ZEF0023387 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW. Before the arrival of Europeans in Australia two hundred years ago, most Aborigines lived as semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers along the fertile coastal plains and rivers. It would be a mistake to assume that the system of nom
ZEF0023382 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW, Australia. More than 70 per cent of Aborigines live in urban communities and marriages between adult Aborigines and non-Aborigines has increased to 64 per cent from 46 per cent in 1986.
ZEF0023383 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW, Australia. "Rosie" Vesper is an art and crafts teacher, an elderly woman recognised by the local community. "The white people look at us with disdain, because they are stressed by their life and they are jealous of our well-being".
ZEF0023376 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW, Australia. Fred fishing. At Barrie Point there's located a midden (shellfish remnants dump). This area was very popular with the local Goorie people, with family groups regularly collecting and eating seafood here. Spiritual sites usual
ZEF0023380 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW, Australia. For decades, Aborigines were taken from their families in the name of assimilation. As many as one in 10 of all Aboriginal children, historians calculate, were removed from their families between 1910 and 1971 under government orders.
ZEF0023398 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW, Australia When the first British settlers arrived in 1788 they treated the Aboriginals as primitive savages with no claims to the land they lived on. As happened with America's Indians, thousands of Aborigines were massacred as the whites
ZEF0023396 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW, Australia. The John kitchen, aboriginal family.
ZEF0023393 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW, Australia. Aboriginal family at home: John and Billy playing videogame.
ZEF0023379 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW, Australia. According to the Aboriginal concept of the world, there was a period before man inhabited the earth when ancestral spirits in human and animal form wandered freely, and, in the course of passing through the country, shaped the p
ZEF0023381 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW.
ZEF0023384 © Franco Zecchin
ZEF0023391 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW. The children plays.
ZEF0076667 © Franco Zecchin
Ngaru village, Yamba NSW. Philip "Yogi Bear" drinking wine at home. Three decades of land-claim, 'stolen generation', dispossession and even genocide propaganda trumpeted by the black aristocracy, academics and media have imbued many Aboriginals with feelings ranging from anger, frustration and bitterness to a deep hatred of white society and white people.
ZEF0076666 © Franco Zecchin