William Tilmouth: What I Wish People Knew About Creating Change
William Tilmouth, an Arrernte man, member of the Stolen Generations and chair of Children’s Ground, a strategy for First Nations empowerment, knows how to shift attitudes.
First and foremost, to create lasting change is to give people a choice, to give people agency, to give people a say. People are mobilised by the simple fact that it’s the first time they’ve ever been asked to have a choice in life. And they take it on with gusto. It picks up and the momentum can grow rapidly. It’s listening, it’s giving people back their dignity, giving people respect and giving people room to express themselves in the way they want to.
Systemic change – economic, social and cultural – requires an attitudinal approach in how people see things. A lot of the trouble Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people face as a community is because those systemic and structural changes have never happened. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. Prescribed solutions don’t work. We need to look at things differently.
With Children’s Ground, we start with the children. It’s the foundations they’re born into that we need to maintain – to speak their own language, have their own culture, yet be part of mainstream Australia. It’s not rocket science. And it’s making an impact. The buoyancy in the community is extremely high. People participate and their participation guarantees success.
Walking a mile in other people’s shoes – visiting, talking, understanding and empathising with them – you’ll see the need there. Our supporters come on board because, for the first time in their lives, they have an introduction into a world that hasn’t been theirs historically. To see the conditions for themselves and say, “I don’t want this for my child and I definitely don’t want this for any other child.” The support we get comes from people saying, “This is modern Australia so let’s bring about change.”
