In 1843 a survey was conducted in London which found that only 26 of the city’s 2,400 hospitalised patients were children. Yet in the same year, of 51,000 deaths recorded in London, 21,000 were children under the age of ten and one third of London’s children died before their first birthday. Clearly there was a … More A Tale of Two Cities
This week a scandal erupted in Australia. Reported in part from my home town, the exposé has rippled across the globe, making front page headlines as far away as Canada and Europe. The developed world has been affronted by images of a boy shackled to a mechanical restraint chair that our elected representatives approved the … More A Nostalgia For Injustice
Earlier this year on a trip to the city, I drove through inner-suburb tree-lined boulevards, marveling at the rows of sandstone and bluestone villas with their manicured gardens. I once spent a happy few years living and working in this city. At that time I did not consider that it was an especially opulent lifestyle. … More One Degree of Separation
Mathew was nine when I met him and twelve when he became orphaned and homeless. He arrived on my doorstep everyday in the summer of 2006, asking to “stay”. My privileged eyes had no clue what was going on and I repeatedly sent him away, completely unaware that in modern day Australia a child could … More An Awkward Association
In October I wrote about the elderly woman caring for her three orphaned grandchildren, who walks the streets scavenging for recyclables to sell in order to feed the family. I will call her Belle. Back then I shared this photograph of her at home with the children. Since then a friend has been donating AU$35 … More Imperfect Equals
Somewhere over the rainbow Way up high There’s a land that I dreamed of Once in a lullaby A few weeks ago I saw the recent NZ film Hunt for the Wilderpeople at the cinema with Karen. An indigenous teenager from one of Australia’s most remote communities, she laughed loudly and often, sometimes at inappropriate … More The Magic is Always There
As kids we wondered about the price of fish in Mexico as a way of suggesting something was highly irrelevant. I thought of this as I wrote to a friend to ask about the price of chickens in Cambodia? Who’d have ever thought such a thing would ever be relevant to my life? Turns out … More The Price of Fish in Mexico
The average number of individuals directly infected by one infectious case during the entire infectious period of a specific disease is defined as the basic reproductive rate. Infectious diseases have individual characteristics, such as the route of transmission and the number of organisms needed to cause infection, which make this calculation different for each disease. … More Disease and Discrimination
In 2013 Angelina Jolie won a humanitarian award at the Governor’s Awards, which celebrate lifetime achievement in film, and form a part of the Academy Awards in Hollywood. Her heartfelt, at times tearful, utterly inspiring speech, started out acknowledging various people including friends and family. She then went on to honour her mother, who had … More The Definition of Success
More than 40% of the Central Australian population are indigenous. 18 local languages are spoken here. My associations with indigenous people, as with locals in Cambodia and Timor Leste, or with the British, Americans, Spanish and French, have been positive, warm-hearted and filled with laughter and friendship. Mum always said “people are the same no … More Credit Where Credit is Due
