Langaliki

Langaliki lives in the community of Pukatja, also known as Ernabella, 435 km south east of Alice Springs.

Langaliki paints in the colourful and dramatic abstract style for which the Ernabella region is famous.

There are Indigenous people in these remote communities who just accept going blind. For them, it’s just the way life is.

Worse, treatment has to be done in hospital.

Hospitals, in their experience, are places you go to die. The belief is that when people become very sick in their communities they get sent to hospital. Then, often, they don’t come back.

In spite of this fear, Langaliki was willing to give it a go.

In 2006 she took the plunge and had one eye operated on for cataract.

Then the sight in her other eye began to fade.

Luckily for her, The Fred Hollows Foundation, in collaboration with partners including the Australian and Northern Territory Governments, the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress, the Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation and The Eye Foundation, is targeting the large backlog of eye operations in remote central Australia with a series of week long surgical sessions. 

It’s a daunting task.

There are 55,000 people in an area twice the size of NSW, covering 1.6 million square kilometres, making it geographically one of the largest integrated eye health programs in the world. (You can see just how big it is on the map shown below.)

The challenge is to locate the hundreds of people who need surgery, help them to get over their fear of hospital and nervousness about leaving their country and going to town.

Easily said. Harder done.

When we do find them they are often extremely anxious about being treated. They usually politely agree to come. But for one reason or another they don’t always get on the bus.

But Langaliki came.

When she arrived in Alice for the operation, she was excited and nervous.

Her eyes were examined and the operation to remove her cataract and insert an intraocular lens was begun.

“It’s like putting glasses inside your eye,” the surgeon, Tim Henderson explained to her as he operated.

Twenty four hours later the moment of truth arrived.

“Shall we take it off?” the doctor asked her, reaching for the dressing taped over her left eye.

A small sound escaped her lips, half groan and half anticipation.

As the doctor lifted off the dressing, the sound rose, then rounded into a heartfelt “aaahhh...” as the smile spread across her face.

It was a success!

Her joy and gratitude lit up her wonderful, expressive face.

Now she can get around on her own again. She can leave the aged care home in which she lives, to spend time with her family.

And she can get back to her beloved painting.

Would you make a gift now, to help us help others see again?

The surgical session in which Langaliki was treated was the first for this year. We’re doing another now and have one more later this year.

We take a holistic approach to Aboriginal eye care.

We provide direct eye treatment programs, surgery, and affordable spectacles.

We also work with local community partners to provide shops that sell affordable, fresh food, and teach families to prepare healthy food.

We help them plant their own market gardens so they can harvest their own fresh food. And we support a new maternal and child health project.

We usually only provide direct eye care. But in Aboriginal communities, the problem needs to be tackled at many levels, so that’s what we do.

We couldn’t do it without supporters like you.

Your gifts help people like Langaliki see again.

Fred always said that “we discover our own humanity by helping others who have been less fortunate than us through the lottery of birth”.

Please give as much as you can to help us restore sight in countries like Eritrea, Nepal, Vietnam, Kenya and here in Australia, within our own remote Indigenous communities.

View photo slideshow to see some wonderful images of Langaliki and other Indigenous Australians from remote communities in Central Australia.

Eye health

• Partnering on The Central Australian Eye Health Program
• The NT Outreach Optometry Project provides access to optometry services for people in remote communities.

Nutrition

• Working with local partners to provide access to affordable, healthy food and teaching families about food choice and preparation.

Literacy

• Supporting programs that provide culturally targeted and entertaining books to children within remote Indigenous communities. 

Women’s health and development

• Partnering with the Katherine West Health Board on the Maternal and Child health project.
• Working closely with locally run Women’s Centres to expand their services.