Professor Gracelyn Smallwood honored by the United Nations.

Emelda Davis says…”as president of the ASSI.PJ, and on behalf of the board, we would like to congratulate Professor Gracelyn Smallwood on her 45 years of commitment to her relentless community work and most recent international achievement of recognition for the pestigious United Nations Association of Australia’s Queensland Community Award – Individual, in recognition of her service to education and to public health. The award acknowledges her contribution to Australian Universities, to HIV Aids and consultative work to the World Health Organization.”

The award was presented on the 24th October 2013 by the Governor of Queensland, Her Excellency Penelope Wensley AC at Government House in Brisbane.

This was a mainstream award with two other Indigenous recipients also receiving awards, namely Les Malezer and Professor Boni Robertson.

Professor Gracelyn Smallwood – AO, MSc, RN. A Vanuatu descendant and proud Birri-gubba Woman & Elder for the Birri people in Townsville Gracelyn was awarded Queensland Aboriginal of the Year in 1986; an Order of Australia medal in 1992 for service to public health, particularly HIV-AIDS education; and in 1994 was the first woman, Indigenous person and non-peadiatrician to receive the Henry Kemp Memorial Award at the International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Scholarship in cross-cultural comparative health of Maori and First Nations in New Mexico and Arizona, and then Polynesian disadvantage in Hawaii.

Gracelyn has lectured in cross-cultural studies at the East-West Centre in Hawaii and was Associate Professor and Director of the University of Southern Queensland’s Kumbari/Ngurpai Lag Higher Education Centre for Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders from 1995 to 1999. She has lectured at Thursday Island, the University of Honolulu, and participated as a speaker at a W.H.O conference in public health. Currently works at the largely Indigenous Cleveland Youth Detention Centre as nurse and mentor, and at Townsville Hospital as a nurse and midwife; Associate Professor and Indigenous Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor at James Cook University a driving force behind JCU’s progressive Reconciliation Statement.

As a surviving descendant of the Blackbirding trade in Australia between 1863 and 1908, Professor Smallwood will be presenting a talk on ‘Community Cohesion and Activism’ at this years Wantok 2013 Australian South Sea Islanders National Forum in her capacity as leader of the Historical Advisory Panel to the ASSI.PJ interim national body.