First Nations Telegraph

Aurukun Shire Council will deliver 1920 meals a month to vulnerable people in the community with the establishment of the FareShare Meals for the Mob program in Aurukun, thanks to a collaborative effort with multiple organisations.

 

Aurukun Deputy Mayor Craig Koomeeta said the council-led initiative was a much-needed step in supporting the community’s resilience and addressing food insecurity in a remote Indigenous community.

 

“Essential supplies have arrived in our community in Cape York Peninsula in a refrigerated container donated by the Indigenous Futures Foundation with the support of the NAB Foundation,” he said.

 

“Primary Connect, Woolworths’ logistics arm, provided logistics support to truck the container and its contents from Brisbane to Cairns and on to Aurukun with Sea Swift.

 

“Foodbank Queensland has contributed five pallets of goods, Share the Dignity has donated a quarter pallet of personal care items, and SecondBite has filled the remaining space in the container as well as providing storage to facilitate loading and collection.

 

“Multiple services and agencies in community will stock the culturally appropriate and nutritious meals, providing them as relief to those who are experiencing food insecurity for a variety of reasons.

 

“This model will encourage community members to engage with programs and services that can support them to address the challenges being experienced in accessing appropriate food.

 

“Our community is very grateful for the assistance from so many organisations and in particular to FareShare and Indigenous Futures Foundation for helping to get this initiative underway.”

 

FareShare First Nations Officer Jason Mollenhauer said the Meals for the Mob program had already seen Primary Connect help FareShare deliver more than 113,000 meals to remote First Nations communities last financial year.

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“We’ve been looking forward to launching our Meals for the Mob program in Aurukun and will work closely with the Council and community to build resilience for seasonal impacts,” he said.

“The delivery of the container was the beginning of an ongoing relationship, and we are committed to providing the Meals for the Mob program well into the future.”

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Indigenous Futures Foundation founder Levi-Joel Tamou said they were very fortunate to be able to partner with Aurukun on this exciting project.

 

“Their leadership team has been first class and to know the impact on ground will be ongoing is very important,” he said.

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“This, however, is just the start, there are more than 1139 remote First Nation communities in Australia with over 90 per cent facing food insecurity. 

 

“The current Close The Gap Agenda fails to recognise that every day. There are thousands of our mob who don’t get to eat healthy affordable food, and as a result we get diseases like Type 2 diabetes, infant malnutrition and low life expectancy which prevent us from going to school and excelling at our jobs. 

 

“Our mission is to end the food crisis in First Nation communities in our lifetime. For that to happen, we need the talent, skills and resources of the private sector to scale innovative projects like this across our country.”

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Food security has been under discussion in Aurukun this month with consultants for the NIAA Nation Strategy for Food Security in community recently undertaking consultation. Their aim is to provide longer term solutions to allow First Nations community access to nutritious, affordable and culturally appropriate food.