Alma Thorpe

Alma Thorpe
Born
Alma Beryl Brown[1]

1935 (age 88–89)
Occupation(s)Aboriginal elder and activist
Known forco-founded the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service

Alma Beryl Thorpe (born 1935), also known as Aunty Alma Thorpe, is an Australian Aboriginal elder and activist. In 1973 she co-founded the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (VAHS), together with her mother, Edna Brown, and Bruce McGuinness.

Early life and education[edit]

Thorpe was born in Melbourne during the Great Depression in Australia in 1935, and her family lived in the suburb of Fitzroy.[2] Her mother was Edna Brown,[3] who, after being forced off the Framlingham Aboriginal Reserve in 1932, aged 15, became a community organiser in Fitzroy. She set up an Aboriginal funeral fund from her new home, after observing many homeless Aboriginal men being buried in pauper's graves.[4] Her father, James Brown, was a second-generation Scottish-Australian who worked for Victorian Railways and was a communist involved in the labour movement.[1]

Thorpe left school at the age of 12 and worked in a shoe factory, and at 18 married and moved to the town of Yallourn.[2]

In the 1960s Thorpe separated from her husband and returned to Melbourne, along with her children, and began work as a barmaid.[2]

Achievements[edit]

Inspired by her mother, Edna, Thorpe joined community leaders such as Geraldine Briggs and Margaret Tucker in protests for Aboriginal rights.[2] In 1972 she was involved in setting up the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.[4]

In 1973, together with her mother[3] and co-founder Bruce McGuinness,[2] she helped to establish the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service (VAHS) to help the Aboriginal community with their health and wellbeing.[5] Through her communist connections, she had been able to enter China and observe the 'barefoot doctors' program; from this experience came her concept of the Aboriginal Health Worker.[1] According to McGuinness, "Without Alma Thorpe there wouldn't have been a health service".[2]

Thorpe also set up the Yappera Children's Service to provide child care, and in 1977, a youth club and gym, later renamed Melbourne Aboriginal Youth Sport and Recreation (MAYSAR).[5][2]

Current positions[edit]

As of 2019 she is Elder in Residence at the Institute of Koorie Education at Deakin University, and continues her work with MAYSAR.[2][5]

Recognition[edit]

For all of her hard work in the Aboriginal community she was made a lifetime member of the Aborigines Advancement League.[5]

Personal life and family[edit]

Thorpe had seven children with her husband, and later fostered two more on her own.[2]

Her daughter Marjorie Thorpe was a commissioner on the Stolen Generations inquiry that produced the Bringing Them Home report, and later a member of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, and a preselected Australian Greens federal candidate for the electorate of Gippsland.[4]

Marjorie's daughter Lidia Thorpe became the first Indigenous woman elected to the Parliament of Victoria in 2018, and the first Victorian Aboriginal Senator in 2020.[6]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Onus, Meriki (6 May 2021). ""I want to be known as a Gundijtmara activist"". IndigenousX. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Alma Thorpe". First Peoples - State Relations. Victorian Government. 29 September 2019. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
  3. ^ a b "Edna Brown". First Peoples - State Relations. Victorian Government. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
  4. ^ a b c Latimore, Jack (23 April 2022). "'Shouty, uninformed, ineffective': How Senator Lidia Thorpe annoys the establishment". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2 August 2022.
  5. ^ a b c d "2011 Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll - Alma Thorpe". State Government of Victoria. 2012. Archived from the original on 22 March 2018. Retrieved 6 December 2017.
  6. ^ New Greens MP Lidia Thorpe's long road from Nowa Nowa to Northcote, The Age, 19 November 2017.

External links[edit]

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