Aurora TV to air four Foundation programs during Indigenous Health Month in September
August 11, 2008
Aurora Community Channel has chosen four of the Rural Health Education Foundation’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health programs to air as part of its Indigenous Health Month broadcast schedule.
Aurora, now available through the digital versions of Austar, Foxtel and Optus TV, will show the four programs, which all highlight successful community initiatives for promoting good health, on four consecutive Thursdays beginning September 4.
The programs selected are Start Strong, Grow Strong, Keep Safe and Indigenous Mental Health: An Interview with Professor Ernest Hunter.
Foundation welcomes new distribution opportunity
“We’re delighted that Aurora has chosen to deliver Foundation programming to its viewers across Australia’s three major digital subscription television platforms,” said Don Perlgut, CEO of the Rural Health Education Foundation. “As with our recent broadcast collaborations with SBS-TV and National Indigenous Television, we welcome any initiative that makes our educational content more accessible to rural and remote and Indigenous communities.”
Strong program emphasis on positive outcomes
Start Strong (airing September 4 and 11) and Grow Strong (September 18) are both half-hour programs which showcase community-based initiatives designed to combat some of the poor birth outcomes and early health problems experienced by Aboriginal peoples. Start Strong and Grow Strong were filmed at the Townsville Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Service, Daruk Aboriginal Medical Service, Jirnani Childcare Centre on Bathurst Island, and the Strong Women Strong Babies Strong Culture program in Darwin.
Keep Safe (September 25), another half-hour program, offers successful models and ideas for injury prevention in Aboriginal communities. Projects examined include the Hermannsburg (NT) Night Patrol, the Top End Women’s Legal Service (Darwin) and the Western Australian water safety initiative Watch the Kids.
The final Foundation program in the series, Indigenous Mental Health: An Interview with Professor Ernest Hunter (October 2), is a 16-minute discussion with mental health specialist Professor Ernest Hunter about the serious challenges facing Indigenous mental health in Australia.
Aurora broadcast details
Start Strong - 26 mins - Thursday 4 September and Thursday 11 September 2008
Grow Strong - 26 mins - Thursday 18 September 2008
Keep Safe - 26 mins - Thursday 25 September 2008
Indigenous Mental Health: An Interview with Professor Ernest Hunter - 16 mins - Thursday 2 October 2008
All programs air at:
7.30pm in NSW/ACT/QLD/VIC/TAS
7.00pm in SA/NT
5.30pm in WA
Well viewed and reviewed
The first three of the four Foundation programs airing on Aurora have already been shown several times on SBS-TV, and have garnered positive critiques from independent reviewers. For example, Pat Brodie, National President of the Australian College of Midwives, describes Start Strong as “an essential program for all midwives, nurses, Aboriginal health workers and medical staff.”
The four programs all premiered on the Foundation’s national satellite broadcast network in 2007.
Program funding
Start Strong and Grow Strong were funded by an untied educational grant from Merck Sharp & Dohme (Australia) Pty Ltd with additional funding from the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing and the Ian Potter Foundation. Keep Safe was funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing.