The country's only national First Nations health research centre, the Lowitja Institute, has honoured the enduring the legacy of their patron and namesake by launching the Lowitja O’Donoghue Foundation.
Announced on the occasion of Dr O'Donoghue's 90th birthday, the foundation will "acknowledge, recognise and preserve" the extraordinary legacy of the Pitjantjatjara woman's work.
“Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue has dedicated a lifetime to upholding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights to improve outcomes in health, education, political representation, land rights and reconciliation," said Chair of Lowitja Institute, Selwyn Button.
The Lowitja O’Donoghue Foundation Scholarships will be awarded to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people interested in study, internship, and a career in nursing and the public service sector.
'Universally admired'
The federal government meanwhile announced that it would be contributing $250,000 dollars towards the Foundation's establishment.
Minister for Indigenous Australians Linda Burney announced the seed funding, stating it will assist the foundation develop educational materials about Dr O'Donoghue's life to "keep her story alive".
“Lowitja O’Donoghue is one of those Australians who is universally admired," said Ms Burney in a statement.
“She broke down so many barriers, faced up to racism, overcame adversity and demonstrated that First Nations peoples can achieve anything they put their mind to.”
The money will also be used to hold annual events lobbying for the causes Dr O'Donoghue has "so passionately" pursued.
Always political
At age two, Dr O'Donoghue and her two sisters were taken from their mother in Indulkana, South Australia by missionaries on behalf of South Australia’s Aboriginal Protection Board. Taken to Colebrook Children's home, she was renamed Lois.
Dr O’Donoghue’s lifelong advocacy for First Nations rights was born out of her unrelenting desire to further herself: after being denied entry to the Royal Adelaide Hospital to continue her studies because she was Blak, she fought the decision, and later became the hospital's first Aboriginal trainee doctor in 1954.
This wasn’t the only first for Dr O’Donoghue: she is the first Aboriginal woman to receive an Order of Australia. Received in 1976, the honour was in recognition of her work as a member of the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, and later as Regional Director of the Australian Department of Aboriginal Affairs.
Dr Lowitja (Lois) O'Donoghue presenting a report on the first three years of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation to the Presiding Officers, with Chairperson of the Council Pat Dodson, Parliament House in Canberra, Thursday, November 17, 1994. (Source: AAP)
Dr O'Donoghue would later be appointed the founding Chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC), where she played a key role in drafting the Native Title legislation that arose from the High Court's historic Mabo decision. The reforms survive to this day, even following ATSIC’s dissolution by the Howard government in 2005.
Fellow patron Pat Anderson AO and former Lowitja Institute Chair gave praise for Dr O'Donoghue's legacy and her ‘powerful and unrelenting’ advocacy for her people, highlighting that First Nations nurses played a critical role in responding to COVID-19 in our communities.
"It is especially fitting that Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue’s legacy will contribute to continuous care for our communities into the future,” Ms Anderson said.
