10/10/09
A survivor of child sexual abuse tells Scott Giles why her experience makes her willing and able to help the most vulnerable members of cassowary country. Signs on the way to Sue Curtis’s home advertise avocados at $2 a bag, oppose abortion with pictures of a foetus, declare that ”bruises heal but hearts don’t” and say domestic violence kills. Along the way you pass dairy cows that are ankle deep in mud, you get the feeling that much is hidden out here. In March Curtis, 58, was appointed co-ordinator of the Wuchopperen child protection service at Atherton, the Tablelands township an hour west of Cairns where the former Queensland premier Peter Beattie spent his formative years. Her small team of five is one of 29 across Queensland that provide advice on indigenous child protection to the state’s Child Safety Department. The Tablelands are wide and lush with rainforest. Clouds hang like the breath of God around volcanic peaks; crater lakes are deep and clear. And the area is home to the cassowary and Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroo. Red-hot in summer and foggy cold in winter, it is perfect for fruit and corn.
See: http://www.smh.com.au/national/god-bless-the-child-20091009-gquf.html
Tags: Aboriginal, Abuse, Australia, Children, health