The ABC’s Shalailah Medhora reports (7.9.16) on Mission Australia’s latest youth survey results, which point to disturbing rates of unhappiness and suicide among the nation’s young Indigenous people.
‘Young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men have lower rates of happiness than their non-Indigenous counterparts, with 10 percent rating their happiness as zero out of ten, a new survey has found.
‘The Mission Australia Youth Survey spoke to 18,727 people – 1,162 of whom identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.
‘Young Indigenous men were most likely to report very low rates of happiness, though nearly five per cent of young Indigenous women also rated their happiness as zero out of ten. By contrast, just 1.2 per cent of non-Indigenous men and women had such a low score for happiness.
‘Young Indigenous people are also more concerned about bullying and more worried about their personal safety than other Australians, the survey found.
‘The survey results tie into what we already know about Indigenous disadvantage.’