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Community spirit
By Cpl Corinne Boer
Edition 1171, July 26, 2007 |
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Hey kids: Pte Damian Guyula plays with local kids during a visit to Finke.
Photo by Cpl Corinne Boer |
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A CARIBOU touched down smoothly on a small dirt airstrip to deliver a health assessment team, medical supplies and soldiers to the remote community of Finke in the NT on July 17.
Four health professionals and two soldiers will be based in the community on two-week rotations.
Finke is the most remote of more than 30 communities in central Australia visited so far as part of the JTF 641-led Operation Outreach, the ADF’s support to the Australian Government’s initiative to assist Aboriginal communities in the NT.
JTF 641 Commander Col Mark Shephard visited Finke to oversee the insertion.
“What we have done is commenced the insertion of the first big group of health assessment teams supported by Army personnel,” he said. “Finke was so remote we managed to obtain a Caribou from the RAAF to deploy the team, which was very useful.”
Five Norforce personnel had arrived by road earlier in the day to set up camp for the civilian health assessment team.
Col Shephard gauged the preparations and noticed how well the team had been received by the community.
“It’s good to see that the community has turned out to welcome the civilians in the health assessment team and make them feel like they are supported,” he said.
The first health check team was deployed to the town of Hermannsburg on July 10, with the Army providing logistical, communication and transport support.
Capt Noel Jordan, OC of Centre Sqn Norforce, said three survey teams were based at Tennant Creek, from where they were heading out to surrounding communities.
He said some soldiers were left at the communities that had been visited to maintain the tents and other equipment around the health clinics.
“The team may be out there for two weeks and then another will go in and replace it. It depends on the number of children that present for health assessment within each community,” Capt Jordan said.
Soldiers from Norforce’s Darwin Sqn and members of the Pilbara Regt are involved in Op Outreach. About 30 personnel have come down to Norforce’s Centre Sqn to bring up JTF 641 numbers in Alice Springs to 70.
Finke was the first remote community that the Darwin Sqn soldiers visited.
After setting up the camp for the health team, Pte Damian Guyula played and chatted with the local kids who had taken over an Army tent for their cubby house.
“I think this was a good experience. Some of the kids think they know some members of my family,” Pte Guyula said.
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