Survivor: healing leads to stronger communities (AIHW)

The Healing Foundation spoke to Stolen Generations survivor Uncle Michael (Widdy) Welsh (Wailwan) about the latest findings from Australian Institution of Health and Welfare (AIHW).

Uncle Widdy shared with us about his experiences of how government policies fractured his family unit from a young age. 

The AIHW findings reveal survivors and descendants of the Stolen Generations continue to face significantly worse health and welfare outcomes compared to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples who weren’t removed under past policies.  

Uncle Widdy says that healing for him means fixing the family structure, which will lead to stronger communities. 

Trauma from forced removal is difficult to overcome

“Until I got to 53 years of age…I didn’t understand — anger was given to me by Kinchela Boys Home and from being ripped away from my brothers and sisters.

“I never realised how much they programmed me,” he said.

“It saddens me to hear that non-Indigenous people say ‘it was a good thing they were taken away’ – they don’t understand that where we were taken to was a place of evil. We were abused, tied up, flogged, sexually abused.

“We were programmed to be slaves for the colonised world,” he recalled.

“When I got out and was old enough, I started working… I realised that what I was doing was because of how I was programmed.

“It also led to family break downs and me getting into relationship after relationships that fell down,” he said.

“The trauma that I have has grown.”  

What does healing look like?

Uncle Widdy says family structure is about protection, understanding, loving and sharing.

“In our own family structure that I had at the time – if someone did something wrong, we knew what Aunty or Uncle to tell – that would then get sorted out by them in a cultural way,” he said.

He said that past Governments broke that family structure, and you see the impacts of that today through our people getting locked up, the highest incarceration rates, the highest juvenile detention, and the highest suicide rates.

“People might not understand about this impact.

“We need structural change for my children for my grandchildren,” he said, as he reflected on the data from AIHW, which shows many Stolen Generations survivors and descendants experience complex and intersecting health, social and emotional wellbeing and care needs.

Strengthening future generations

A father of 8 children, many who have children of their own, Uncle Widdy says the most important thing in his journey of healing is being given the right to be able to pass on his knowledge to his children and grandchildren.

“I want them to read and write, and to keep up with the colonised world.

“I also want the impacts of what my family has been experienced to be understood by Australia,” he said.

He has a strong message for government and stakeholders who can create change: 

“We don’t need pity. We need people to walk with us.

“Fixing what has been broken in our family structure will create a better community and surely that will lead to gains for the broader Australian community,” he said.

“Happy families make happy communities.”

Related information 

• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data on Stolen Generations survivors and descendants
• Joint AIHW/The Healing Foundation media release
• The Healing Foundation key messages