Famous Indigenous Person: Anthony Mundine - Essay Example

? Famous Indigenous Person Introduction Anthony’s Mundine personal life and background Anthony Mundine was born in the year 1975 on May 21st in Australia. He is also married. Anthony Mundine can be first described as an Australian boxer who is a professional in the field of boxing. Starting with his personal life and his background, the self proclaimed professional boxer was also a former player of the rugby league football team. His achievements include a WBA light middleweight champion boxer. He is also a two-time WBA super middleweight champion, an IBO middleweight champion and a New South Wales state of origin representative footballer. Before he made his move to become a professional boxer, he had the opportunity of being the highest paid player in the NRL (Australian Library, 2010, p. 34). His life as a teenager was characterized with him spending time in his fathers’ gym. It came to a time that he took part in some matches, though amateur, when he was at the age of 17. Being a talented basketball player, he played for a while before he came to notice rugby, a field that he excelled at. When he attained the age of 18, he made his debut in the rugby field, starting with the league rugby. After this, he came to be a member of the St. George-Illawarra Dragons (Marshall, 2008, p.34). This was the Sydney franchise in the ‘National Rugby League’ (NRL) and was also the top professional organization for the sport based in Australia. In this team, he had the position of playing a position known as the five-eighth. This was also called the standoff and a person who holds this title serve as an additional center for a team's attacking line. Anthony Mundine is the son and takes after his father who is also a boxer; Tony Mundine. Anthony is also a member of the Bundjalung people and is proud of this. He received a lot of attention when he converted to Islam religion (Hunter, 2008, p.45). He converted to Islam in 1999. The professional boxer can be described as an individual who has had the passion for boxing from an early age of watching his father train other boxers. In the Australian sports history, Anthony has the title of the ‘player with a transverse ability’ who can use his skills to make his name known. He is known as the most polarizing player in the sports history of Australia. In 2009, he was named the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person of the year and credited with winning the Deadly Award as the male sportsperson of the year back in 2010, 2009 and also in the year 2009 (Flood, 2009, p.89). He is also the first professional boxer to have his fights broadcasted on television. Looking at his history, Anthony holds the title of being one of Australia's most celebrated and one of the most controversial athletes. Being a member of an indigenous Australian community, he started with voicing his opinion on the matter concerning racism at a time when he was a celebrated and recognized rugby player. Afterwards, he still continued to make his facts known even after he had left the field and joined professional boxing. He sometimes stated that people hated him for voicing his own opinions about racism and other factors that other indigenous people faced. He knew for a fact that he was hated and this did not discourage him. Being a fighter, he made himself known around the world and made efforts to maintain his titles (Ellis, 2009, p.302).  Antony’s particular impact on aborigines’ health and social life is that he gave them the courage to compete favorably with other communities in all fields. His success is evidence that any person can achieve a goal when he/she has set the mind on it. The health aspect was affected by Antony’s life since it he made the people aware on the advantages of taking care of one’s body. The social aspect was affected since Antony proved to the entire world that where an individual comes from does not matter, what is important is his mind. Discuss both the social and health impact on both indigenous and non-indigenous society An indigenous person is an individual who can be defined as one who originates naturally from a particular region or place. The word can also be described as native. A native is a person who is originally from a certain place. These people are native born. Non-Indigenous people are the opposite of indigenous people (Jentoft, Gaski, Midre? & Minde, 2008, p.102). They are not originally from there and for some reasons are seen as not to fit in depending on how they conduct themselves. Looking at Australia, improving the health status of the indigenous people has been a problem that has been there for quite a while. It has been a challenge for governments in Australia. The population health and the inequality in Australia can be determined by a number of social factors. Some of the determinants that are considered essential to indigenous health inequality in Australia include the unequal access to primary healthcare and also there is a very low standard of health infrastructure (Das Gupta, 2009, p.221).  Such low standards of living have come to affect the housing, food and the sanitation. The indigenous communities suffer from this more than other Australians. Looking at the health status of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, it can be seen that a definite echelon of scarcity that cannot be compared average populace. Presently, there still remains a large level of an inequality gap in Australia that can be seen in statistics. Looking at an example of the level of indifference, statistics show that there is estimated gap that has been calculated to about 17 years between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous in terms of the life expectation in Australia (Chakma & Jensen, 2011, p.23). For all the age groups that are below the ages of 65, death rates for Indigenous Australians can be seen to be at least twice those that are experienced by the Australian non-Indigenous population. As for the Indigenous people, they do not share the privilege of having the equal opportunity to be among the healthy Australians like the non-Indigenous Australians enjoy. When it comes to the ‘Indigenous individuals’ of ‘Australia’, there is a certain relative socioeconomic disadvantage that they experience and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people suffer the most compared to non-Indigenous people. This makes face the menace of being exposed to the behavioral and environmental health risk factors that exist around them (Carrin, 2009, p.57). The majority of the population lives in Indigenous households that are characterized by conditions that do not support good health standards. Indigenous people in Australia do not have the opportunity of getting pleasure from access to equal primary health care and also the health infrastructure. They do not have the privilege of getting safe drinking water, having effective sewerage systems, rubbish collection services and also healthy housing. Over the years, there has been very little progress to reduce the huge gap of inequality amid the ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘Torres Strait Islander’ and the non-Indigenous Australians (Carrin, 2009, p.121). Even the important term such as the life expectancy has not been looked into. Basically, looking at the inequality in terms of the health status experienced by ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘Torres Strait Islander’ populace, it can be linked to the fact that there is a certain level of systemic discrimination that is in play. Looking at the history of the ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘Torres Strait Islander’ people, do not have comparable opportunity to experience a healthy life like the non-Indigenous people. This is because there has been the lack of the inaccessibility to the mainstream services and also the low access to health services. This includes the primary health care that is very much needed and the inadequate provision of health infrastructure in some of the communities. This goes only to show that has been a great deal of inequality over the years (Webb, 2009, p.12).  Appropriate Indigenous Health Statistics   According to statistics, the health status of the indigenous people of Australia is alarming. According to the 2011 National Census that was carried out, the total average gross household income for the Indigenous population in Australia was calculated to be about $364, which was seen to be per week. This was far lower than that of the ‘non-indigenous’ populace, which was seen to be at 62% per week. This was for the non-Indigenous peoples, which would basically mean that it was about $585 per week. This, even without much analysis, indicates that even though the indigenous people want to get the primary healthcare, their financial status cannot allow it. They have been reduced to earning less yet the economy requires them to use more when it comes to consuming. While at the 2011 Census, the rate of unemployment for Australian Indigenous peoples was 20%. This, while calculated, tends to be three times higher than the rate of unemployment as regarding to the non-Indigenous Australians. With this, it can be seen that there is no way that the indigenous people can be able to access medical care and still remain healthy. Looking at the national statistics of 2008, the rate of Indigenous students to be able to continue to the final level in school was half as likely as the non-indigenous students were to continue. These are some of the links between healthcare and the health status against the social-economic status. This would mean that the higher percentage o students who had poor education were the ones from the indigenous community and because their literacy levels were low, they would have a poor health status as compared to the non-indigenous students. This means that there would be a negative effect on the capacity of the indigenous people to use the health information to access healthcare services (Read, 2009, p.163). Again, according to statistics, poor income is the overall contributor for the reduction of the accessibility of healthcare services and also access to medicine. Again, according to statistics, it is true to state that places with overcrowding and a housing system that is not up to standard would mean that poverty was prevalent in that area and as such, there would be the possibility of a spread of disease. Such a disease would become communal and would spread fast. Indigenous people statistics also show that without the necessary nutrition, there would be a likely possibility that infants and the elderly would not survive (Sanders, 2009, p.221). Poor infant diet is commonly associated with poverty; hence, later in life the child, would grow to have chronic diseases. Statistics have proven that the non-indigenous population is much larger that the indigenous population. Also, according to statistics, there has been a much higher level of smoking tendencies and high risk behavior that is commonly associated with the indigenous people (Ivison, Patton, & Sanders, 2009, p.201). Smoking and high-risk behaviors are commonly associated with lower social-economic status; a perfect example being that the indigenous people are known for their low social-economic status. When it comes to the statistics, the indigenous people have a higher rate of non-existence than the non-indigenous people and this is worrying. Statistics also show that poor people have less control when it comes to their financial capability and also when it comes to other forms of their day to day lives. This leads to stress, which would lead sickness. This makes it impossible to access medical care and thus, the people who suffer most are those who are poor. In this case, these are the indigenous people (Jentoft, 2010, p.165).  Conclusion As discussed in the essay above, the indigenous people of Australia suffer more than anticipated. The non-indigenous people have a far better chance of survival in terms of healthcare than their counterparts (UN-Habitat., UN, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, & UN Housing Rights Programme, 2011, p.330). There are other pressing issues that are in place, but the most common are the socio-economic status, poverty and the health care inaccessibility. One accomplishment after the writing of this essay is that it has managed to show the level of non-recognition and non-satisfaction of the indigenous people and also the human rights. There should be a connection between the health status of the people and enjoyment of life (Daes, 2008, p.102).  Bibliography Australian Library. (2010). Indigenous Australian Boxers. General Books. Carrin, G. 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