ANTaR's Healing Hands Campaign is about improving Indigenous health.

The Indigenous health crisis affects every aspect of Indigenous lives and communities, and the situation is getting worse. Here's some examples:

• An Aboriginal child born today will still live on average for 17 years less than a non-Aboriginal child.
• Indigenous people are between two and four times more likely to have diabetes than non-Indigenous Australians. They are also eight times more likely to die from this illness.
• Deaths from respiratory conditions are four times, circulatory conditions three times and rheumatic heart disease 20 times higher for Indigenous Australians.
• Chronic heart disease rates are three times and chronic kidney disease nine times higher for Indigenous Australians.
• On average, a person from Nigeria or Bangladesh can expect to live for about 10 years longer than an Indigenous Australian.
• Indigenous Australians fare much worse than Indigenous people in countries like the United States, Canada and New Zealand. For example, infant mortality rates for Indigenous Australians are almost twice as high as those of Indigenous people in the US and New Zealand.

Do something

Racism has recently been recognised in a number of key reports as a threat to public health in Australia. Make a personal commitment to eradicate racism by signing the pledge. Then, do the quiz to find out how many of the myths about Indigenous Australians you thought were facts.

Please sign the Close the Gap pledge. We're calling on the Australian government to take action to achieve health equality for Indigenous Australians within 25 years.

Please also add a hand to the virtual Sea of Hands, and let your local politicians know how you feel about Indigenous health in Australia.

As part of the Healing Hands campaign, there's many other ways you can take action for Indigenous Australians.

Find out more

The facts above are taken from ANTaR's National Director, Gary Highland's, speech These are the killing times.

Please also have a look at

• the Success Stories in Indigenous health booklet and map. This shows that Indigenous-led health care initiatives often get the best results.
• the open letter on Indigenous health (PDF 696k) that a coalition of organisations sent to the Prime Minister and other parliamentarians in December 2006. It's titled "Indigenous children are dying at almost three times the rate of non-Indigenous children: A call for health equality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples".

Please also have a look at ANTaR's press releases on Indigenous health issues.