NAIDOC Week: Derryn Ross

00:05 S1

This is Studio 1 on Vision Australia radio.

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I don't have the time...

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Hello, I'm Sam.

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And I'm Lizzie.

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And this is Studio 1, your weekly look at life from a low vision and blind point of view, here on Vision Australia Radio.

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On this week's show...

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The week we are heading into the red centre of Australia to Alice Springs. In fact, Derryn Ross talks about life from a blind indigenous point of view...

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... while Vision loss support specialist Melissa Chan talks about her roles in the lives of people just like Darren.

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As we always say at this point, please do get in touch with the show. Whether you have experience of any of the issues covered in this episode of Studio 1, or if you think there is something we should be talking about, you never know. Your story and insight may help somebody else who is dealing with something similar.

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Please contact us via email at studio1@visionaustralia.org - that's studio number one at Vision Australia dot org. Or perhaps you can drop us a note on our Facebook page at facebook.com slash VA Radio Network.

01:16 S2

As this is a NAIDOC Week, we are doing something a little bit different. Normally we talk to people all around Australia, but this time we are going to the centre of Australia. We are joined by Melissa and Derryn over in Alice Springs. Hello people.

01:31 S4

Hi, I'm Melissa.

01:32 S2

Derryn, when we talked last time, you you told me you like music and movies. Yes. And I mentioned that I was lucky enough to actually see the original line up to the Warumpi band and to Yothu Yindi. You know of these? Well, you said you really like all the Aboriginal bands. Why? Why do you like them so much and are up north? 

01:57 S5

Up, down. Why is that? My... family, who are really good famous artists. Okay. I never heard of. Now he's passed up the Aboriginal arm in his arm grinder, so. But this one is very, very hardest in ice. It got very nice boys, you know.

02:22 S2

I remember who you're talking about.

02:24 S5

Yes, and I asked my family and so. But I really love to listen to music.

02:30 S2

So I see, he's a beautiful singer.

02:32 S5

Yeah.

02:32 S2

I never had the chance to meet him. I had the chance to meet the other people in the band. And Yothu Yindi performed at the 1996 Paralympics as well, at the closing ceremony. And I got to give them this my, you know, family band also because I like listening all of them. So it's more a personal thing to you than anything. So it's, it's like listening to people you've known and loved.

03:01 S5

Yeah. Like... different kind of different kind of bands. So like habitat and all the mix of like I love listening any band in our instant. Yeah.

03:18 S2

You like other other sorts of music as well though. So what, what do you like to listen to?

03:22 S5

I really love listening to Saltwater band from up north here. Guess what? That's where my family come from and I really love listening to their music.

03:34 S2

So your family are from further up north? What?

03:37 S5

My family from Island Elk.

03:40 S2

Oh, okay. Elk island. Wow. So you have not always been blind. You told me that you could see at one stage. How did you lose your eyesight?

03:50 S5

You know, not... a long time ago.

03:52 S2

Do you remember being able to see... ?

03:54 S5

When I was... I think about two, I think.

03:59 S2

So what happened was, how did you lose your eyesight?

04:02 S5

I think I was, you know, how many kids play. They just, you know, walk around playing with the... with something which is not good. And I like playing in a mud or touching everything.

04:19 S2

So it was some sort of infection.

04:21 S5

Like what does that mean.

04:22 S2

Like, so you can you see anything nowadays or if you got a little bit of sight or... see nothing.

04:29 S5

Nothing. Nothing, yeah.

04:30 S2

How do you get around? Do you have a white stick and or a dog?

04:34 S5

Normally I just get around just by feeling everything around it and getting around slowly. You know, I'm learning had to be where I'm at to be like very, very slowly walking around, walking around and finding things, you know? It is very hard thing to be and walk around, but I've been doing... {?Kenny], come and everything's been okay. And, you know, I've been very careful of things like, because, you know, if I walk around, I can't be like something that you will fall or you might trip over or of them. They got something? Yeah.

05:25 S2

Yeah, yeah. If, you find too many things, don't you? And things you don't want to find, like... bricks and steps and... car doors. Yeah. So you told me, last time we talked that... so when you're on community, you don't use your cane that much now. Why wouldn't you? I mean, a cane is a very useful thing. It helps you sort of get around. So what's the reason why you don't use your cane that much in our community?

05:49 S5

You know, some people they only and some people they might, you know, they might laugh or whatever. They might be muddy with the kids, you know. Yeah. Like telling the kids to do, like kids think of me or or play with it or run away or just tester thing that do in community. You know, they they're very... sandy things to do like stealing or taking everything paper now, and I'm testing with it with my own speaker. Then what? Come on, get out of stolen. My USB stolen and, like, take my USB away, because that's the kind of thing that I don't like. Sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I get very angry. But my feeling I got and yeah, which is really upset.

06:54 S2

One of the useful things about a white stick is it makes it it says to the world, Hey, I'm blind. I can't see, but yeah, but I presume that when you're on community, yeah, people already know that you're blind or the... people that that mean the most to you that are going to help you the most, they... would be, they would already know that you're blind. Is that right?

07:16 S5

They always guide me around, you know, I just hold on to them or they have to guide me by counting. Like helping me a bit. So just try to... so it's a bit different, yeah. When around home and then out in communities just a little bit different with... using long canes and things.

07:40 S2

Yeah, I understand well, and also, I mean, some of the terrain wouldn't be good for a cane anyway. So, you constantly get stuff stuck and that sort of stuff from.... I'm guessing so...

07:50 S5

Well, excuse me, sir. Also, long time ago... in community, the guide dog people, they used to go and see me or not out there and help me, you know, teach me for, how to use cane or not. But now I'm out of breath. Everything is okay now.

08:17 S3

Did you come down to Adelaide for a guide dogs camp? Once when you were a kid? Yeah, I remember you. Yes, and we stayed in a caravan park. Yeah, yeah, and we did lots of fun things, I remember you. All right.

08:33 S2

He knows everybody. Yeah. Is there anybody you don't know?

08:40 S3

I don't think so. I know a lot of people. I mean, I can't remember everyone that I know, but, for example, it wouldn't have crossed my mind that I would have known him. But, you know, listening to his story and hearing his voice and stuff, I just thought your name is familiar. And when he said about Guide Dogs as well, I remembered the camp. So yeah, I think there's not many people I don't know.

09:04 S2

It is funny though. The, Linus community is just weird like that. I mean, as it turns out, the guy pointed this out to you. Your friend Carly, who we talked to. I'm pretty sure I roomed with her dad in Seoul. Yes. It's a small world, especially when you're dealing with blind people.

09:20 S3

Oh, I agree, so.

09:22 S2

What did you take out of the first bit of that interview?

09:24 S3

Well, it's just really interesting the way that... communities in rural areas function differently and, you know, how... when they're out and about with their family and things, they tend to be helpful. And yeah, I thought I thought it was very interesting. I love to hear about the different ways that blind and vision impaired people of all different, you know, walks of life get around and live their daily lives.

09:51 S2

It's sometimes been said that there are two Australias. There's the Australia that sort of traces its history back to 1788. And there's like an offshoot of the British Empire. And, when the colonies federated in 1901, we've got that history. And then there's a separate Australia that is, goes back a lot further. And while we sort of touch in parts, we are very, very different countries in a lot of ways. I mean, that's something I've thought was obvious, but I mean, I suppose that's what you get from growing up in a city like Darwin, where you're going to school with people from an indigenous background where you... mingle a lot with people from all over the world, but also people who can trace their lineage back to to this country are a lot further back than we can.

10:39 S3

Yeah, it's interesting you say that, Sam, because the other Australia, as you know, you said it is, is an Australia that I'm not familiar with at all. It's not an Australia that I have ever delved into. Of course we had our education, you know, we we had education around it at school. But you just touch on it. You just raise the tip of the iceberg. You don't ever really find out, you know, about the culture and the history and how they get around and how they help each other out and the community. So I'm this interview has actually inspired me to go and do a bit of research and perhaps reach out to some people and find out more about it, because, yeah, it's it's opened my eyes to a lot.

11:24 S2

So this week is NAIDOC week and maybe people don't know the history and why this week exists. So I thought I'd give a brief rundown of the history and, yeah, where we've gone from there. So you've done a bit of research yourself. So what does NAIDOC stand for?

11:43 S3

National Aboriginals and Islanders Day of Observance Committee week.

11:49 S2

It is and it isn't. That's the interesting thing. So in the history, let's go start from... I'm going to start in 1935. William Cooper, who was the founder of the Australian Aborigines League, drafted a petition to send to King George V asking for a special Aboriginal electorates in the Federal Parliament. At that stage, the Australian government believed that the petition fell outside their constitutional responsibilities, and that is because, yes, the indigenous peoples of Australia were not recognised as citizens - and so a lot of laws couldn't be brought about. So, William Cooper came up with a neat idea, and that is to have specific electoral seats for indigenous people.

On Australia Day 1938, protesters marched through the streets of Sydney, followed by a congress attended by over 1000 people, one of the first major civil rights gatherings in the world. It was known as the Day of Mourning. From 1940 until 1955, the Day of Mourning was held annually on the Sunday before Australia Day and was known as Aborigines Day in In 1955, Aborigines Day was shifted to the first Sunday in July after it was decided the day should become not simply a protest day, but also a celebration of Aboriginal culture. Major Aboriginal organisations, state and federal governments all supported the formation of the National Aborigines Day Observance Committee network and note the naming their National Aborigines Day Observers Committee at the same time. 

The second Sunday in July became the Day of Remembrance for Aboriginal People and their heritage in 1972. The Department of Aboriginal Affairs was formed as a major outcome of the 1967 referendum, and remember 1967, this was when Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders became Australian citizens. So they became citizens of their own country.

13:54 S3

Wow.

13:55 S2

In 1974, the network committee was composed entirely of Aboriginal members for the first time. The following year, it was decided that the band should cover a week from the first to second Sunday in July. With the growing awareness of the distinct cultural histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, network was expanded to recognise Torres Strait Islander People and Culture Committee then became known as the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee. The new name has become the title for the whole week, not just the whole day. Now the note at the bottom of the site here was, "the committee respectfully acknowledges the now defunct inaccurate term Aborigines, while retaining the term in our title due to historic use by our elders in establishing the week of commemoration". So what a difference a few words mean. 

14:51 S3

Yes. It's interesting you should say that because, I actually don't know if you've got it included in the sound bits and you can edit this out, but yeah, Melissa said to... the term Aborigines wasn't the proper term. You know, we must use Aboriginals and just, you know, we'd explain to her that this is, you know, this was the word that we read. This is from we were taking directly from a website. So, yeah, I think it's really important that people get their terminology correct or people or that, you know, on the other side, people understand that there's going to be some difference in terminology.

15:28 S2

A lot of this is something is stuff that, as disabled people, we can actually understand this ourselves. Yes. Because yes, there is marginalisation on our side as well. Heaven forbid if you are actually both if you have a disability and, and indigenous as well, then I think you probably get the some of the benefits, but I think you also get the worst of both worlds as well. So, Melissa, we'll come to you now. So what is what is your role in all of this? What is your job?

16:02 S6

So my role at Vision Australia is to work within a Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, which is the community-controlled health organisation in Alice Springs. And I am the...  vision loss support specialist here. And so I work with... Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, in the central Australia and Alice Springs. So really working with people who are blind or have low vision, in that sort of rehabilitation space.

16:37 S2

So is someone like Derryn... I mean, so, and please feel free to chime in Derryn, you can say anything you want as well. So, I mean, so what have you been doing regarding him at the moment? I mean, so what was the, what's the most basic things we're looking at here?

16:52 S6

Ali Hudson was here before I was so over the two of us. So, Ali sort of started working with Darren last year, and... did some work, so... Derryn sleeps in a supported accommodation here in Alice Springs. So he has... some carers that work with you all the time. So she did a lot of work with... just I suppose, educating the carers and the workers here around, you know, what are the basic things around living and working with somebody who is blind? Just some of those strategies around keeping things in... regular places, yeah. Working with... I think she worked with who around, putting some tactile bits and pieces on microwaves and things so that Darren can, can find and get his own cup of tea and breakfast and things. 

And I think, yeah. So that we need to sort of do, probably revisit that, I reckon, Derryn, and just check out all that's going, yes. The other thing that we're working with Derryn on is his mobile phone. Because Derryn didn't have access to a mobile phone before, so we've been doing some work on, and I suppose him finding his, you know, it's a tactile phone that he's got. So being able to ring people and make phone calls to family, we've still got a little bit of work to do on that, haven't we, Derryn. Yes, that we've lost the charger. But anyway, that's a lot of, work that one out. So the other thing I suppose that we're working on, as Darren mentioned, he is doing some volunteer work, one of the community radios here.

18:40 S4

Yes.

18:41 S6

And Derryn spent some time out in community out of town on the last couple of months. So when he, in the next couple of weeks will spend some time together at the radio station and just sort of, I guess, do a bit of a work side assessment. Yeah. 

18:58 S5

Might be I'll just put in some music. Yeah. Different... kind of musics like, you know, letting the people know that I'm doing a work here in Mana Spring, like doing a radio show on Wednesday on 10:00, I think at ten start at ten every morning.

19:20 S2

So, you know, one of the things that chimed with me when you were just talking about it, Melissa is, making sure things are in the right place, I think, unless he can vouch for this. We've all had friends and family who have tidied stuff up for us, and that basically means that I know where everything is, is. And all of a sudden, no, I don't. I can't find anything because it's all tidy somewhere. I'm presuming you've had the same problem there, Derryn.

19:43 S6

Yeah, I think the charger for his phone is one example of that. But it's all, it's very... tidy it away. And so we now need to go find it.

19:53 S3

Oh look, I live with my vision-impaired husband and I still have that problem. Even though he's vision impaired as well, we still end up putting things away and not being able to find them because we put them in different spots. So it's tricky.

20:06 S2

And these are all dresses, this one to you at the moment. You can't go too far away at the moment. But because and here, Alice Springs in the... headlines. What's it like at there, at the moment? I mean, you've had the first day of the curfew, I believe. I mean, have you experienced anything or is there anything that's sort of obvious, from all of that at the moment?

20:26 S6

Well, no... I guess, from my own perspective, I guess I heard about it from the news. Like most other people, I didn't experience anything. I think that the news gives Alice Springs a bit of a bad rap, this up. That stuff doesn't go on. It does. But most people here are just, you know, like you and me and Derryn and, you know, we're just trying to live a life and and get on and do our own, you know, do our things. So. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Don't have too much to say about all that.

21:06 S2

It's an understandable... I mean, judging from what I've been hearing here, I was expecting the smell of smoke to be in the air or something like that, and something out of Mad Max or something. So as this show goes to where Alice Springs is coming to the end of a 72 hour curfew, now, it's not up to us to judge the reasons or the logic behind it, but simply to hope that everybody out there is safe. Now, Derryn, what brought you to Alice Springs?

21:41 S5

And let me tell you the story about my the first time I came when I was a little narrow cell. I came back from Darwin, down from up north because that's where my dad came from. I came down from Darwin, but my mum and, but my dad as well. And that was, that was my first story, and yeah, when I came down. Mum and dad. Yeah. Since then I grew up in a place called Tea Tree and Community that I grew up, and it was one of my younger brothers, and we both grew up in Tea Tree and [?Lee Perry bro]. And we been there for for a long time now. And we've been like in our... me and my young brother, we in our lives, we've been finding it hard and we've been, yeah, finding how ourselves you know, when we are, we are getting through by family. 

So the family helped me and my brother to be cut to, to be a really good... role model, became like, you know, more careful of what we're doing, you know. And also, I like to let both my families up, but my grandma, because, you know, her bringing up staying with my grandma and. But my aunties...

23:24 S2

So you grew up in Tea Tree. So did you go to Tea Tree school?

23:29 S5

School? Yes. That's when I first started.

23:32 S2

Have you gone to any other schools? Have you, did you have a special... spring school, you know, did you have any visiting teachers when you were there?

23:39 S5

Yes. Like there was some teacher that I got to know. That was my teacher again. And teacher helped me a lot when I was in school here in Alice Springs.

23:51 S2

So what is it you want to do with your life? What do you want to... are you, do you want to do anything different, or are you studying to do anything or is there, I mean, you want to do?

24:03 S5

I already I already started when I was in school. I learned a lot in school, but now I'm really finding it hard.

24:14 S2

Right.

24:15 S5

In my life. I'm really finding it hard now. I got job to do on the radio. This is my, I think first time. Oh, yeah. First time, I think because when, when I was in school, that's the time I can still remember that I came to radio station every time when I, you know, I told I think of my life and my, you know, I started being in a school and since then I started to think about job, finding a job. And now it's happening right now that I got like a kind of a radio job that, you know, makes me feel more happy and more excited to try on.

25:09 S2

Joke you're not funny is when I'm while I've been talking to you. When we started talking, you were. You were shy. You were. Were you getting more and more confident as we as we go along, you're now starting to talk a little bit more. So that's... a good thing. That's what we want to want to hear from you.

25:26 S5

Okay. Because you know not a lot of people already thought that they'd start getting shy and all that, and suddenly they start to get talk a bit and get used to it, start talking and, you know, starting to get mor... happy, happiness and start getting more to know about, more about the radio.

25:55 S2

Derryn... so we're going all around Australia at the moment and as this is NAIDOC Week... is there anything you want to say to anybody else out there about you and about this week?

26:08 S5

So today is, what are night of [?Waca casino Harry] Do you wanna know about the night of week? Casino. I like to do fun things as well. I really like to go out for a better, spend time with friends or family, because that's what I really want. Or listen to a band play or something like the band they are, you know, if they play in front of the crowd and the the crowd love it. Love listening to the different bands as well. Like different... community band. I love listening most of the time. I really love listening to my people play or listening to others play as well. I just really love listening to any kind of music.

27:14 S2

What I like about live music, when you go and see it, is that you don't just hear it. Sometimes you feel it.

27:19 S5

Yeah. Feel it. Yes.

27:23 S2

That's a wrap for this week. A big thank you to Derryn and Melissa, also to Sukinda who helped us to set up the interview.

27:30 S3

And of course, thanks to all of you for listening.

27:33 S2

There will be no Studio 1 podcast for the next two weeks. We're actually... not taking a well earned break, we're taking some time out to prepare for the rest of the year. Join us on the 31st of July for all new episodes and podcast specials.

27:46 S3

But between now and then, please do get in touch with the show whether you have any experience with the issues covered on this week's episode of Studio 1, or whether you think there's something we should be talking about? You never know. Your story and insight may help someone who is dealing with something similar.

28:02 S2

Our email address is studio1@visionaustralia.org - that's studio number one at Vision Australia dot org.

28:09 S3

Bye for now.

28:11 S1

Vision Australia Radio gratefully acknowledges the support of the Community Broadcasting Foundation for Studio 1.