“Can’t get angry though, because one angry blackfella means we’re all angry blackfellas. Yet a handful of incompetent whitefellas means what? The system. I want you to care. I want you to be angry, too. I want you to hate this.”
Hate This, is a powerful piece written by Carissa Lee, a Noongar actor and writer whose work has featured in The Guardian, Junkee, Witness Performance, IndigenousX and The Conversation. We are happy to be able share the piece both as written text and spoken word performed by First Nations actor Angeline Penrith.

Hep C isn’t nice. It makes you feel permanently sick and run down. There are reasons, however, why people might be reluctant about getting treated. Before 2016, the main treatment was Interferon. As Aunt Libby — an Aboriginal elder and grandmother of 13 (soon to be 14) — explains, that treatment could feel worse than the illness it was curing. The good news is that the new treatment (a box of pills called “Direct Acting Antivirals” or DAAs) is much easier: fewer pills, no injections and much fewer side effects. Furthermore, they are free or cheap, and if you get reinfected you can do the treatment again — as many times as you need to. Aunt Libby has had both hep C treatments. In this article she compares the 2 and says, “I’d recommend this treatment to anyone. But Interferon, they can forget about that one!”

Celia is gently spoken and carries herself with a natural dignity and beauty. She has a lifetime of advocating for others, working in her community to improve conditions and documenting life as an urban Aboriginal. Intelligent, opinionated and creative, she is clearly a natural leader, although her modesty does not allow her to think in those terms. Celia was born and raised on the Block in a loving family, and although she has lived elsewhere from time to time — including giving her children a connection to the bush — she always returns to her community in the Redfern/Waterloo area.

Kira is, in her own words, “a young woman who has been through a lot” but, writing from jail, she tells how she’s re-taking control of her life and shares what she has learned. “For me, the secret to change is to focus all your energy not on looking back fighting the old, but on building the new you,” she says. “Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Tiptoe if you like but take the step! It takes courage and resilience to be who you really are in a society that mostly denies your existence.”

Kate is a proud Aboriginal woman who has a history of injecting heroin. She wants to share her unique experience of clearing hep C twice, nearly 2 decades apart. Her first treatment was in prison in the early 2000s, with Interferon. Soon after she got out of prison, she got hep C again and didn’t get treated until 2019. Getting treated a second time has been life changing for her and she now supports peers with hep C and drug use.

“We’ve lost too much mob!” is the theme of 3 posters about opioid overdose that NUAA has released that have Indigenous communities as their target audience. They are stunning to look at, thanks to artwork by Aboriginal artist Steve Morgan.

Keenan Mundine, an Aboriginal man in his thirties, is a co-founder of Deadly Connections, a service supporting Aboriginal people. Keenan was 14 when he first went into juvenile detention and did many years of jail after that. Keenan believed that this life was just normal. But then he began to question the information that was passed onto him. Today, he is a family man who uses his experiences to walk with people from his community towards the lives they want.

'For 20 years my life has revolved around that overdose.'

Most of society doesn’t realise this stuff happens. Shane is a peer worker who lives and breathes NUAA’s mission to advance the health, rights and dignity of people who use drugs. Unfortunately, Shane is regularly stopped by police and his healthy fear of police means he can barely breathe around them — which makes him look even more suspicious.

Gail Gray is a proud First Nation Wiradjuri Woman who grew up on Gadigal land in Sydney. Gail spent over 15 years in and out of NSW jails. She has now spent 15 years using her lived experience to help women in the justice system. Gail talked to NUAA about how her choices led her to the Community Restorative Centre (CRC) as a caseworker with the Miranda Project.

For Aboriginal people in Australia, police harassment is a daily fact of life. For Aboriginal people who use drugs, this is doubly so.

“I asked some of my mob who are living in the country about sharing injecting equipment and why they do it - or more to the point, why they don't have new, sterile fits for every hit.”