22 May 2009

Hawthorn Football Club is continuing its partnership with The Rioli Fund for the Indigenous Round this weekend raising both money and awareness with the focus on helping Indigenous children become the healthy adults.

All money raised by the Rioli Fund goes towards Indigenous health research at the Menzies School of Health Research.

Menzies are Australia’s leaders in indigenous health research and their researchers are discovering ways to ‘close the gap’ in indigenous life expectancy and ensure that the Indigenous kids of today become the healthy adults of tomorrow.

It’s a sad fact that young Indigenous people are more likely to suffer from debilitating diseases such as pneumonia and that only one in five children in remote Indigenous communities has normal hearing because of severe ear infections.

Young Indigenous children are more likely to be hospitalised than non-indigenous kids, and seven out of every 10 Indigenous children can expect to have scabies and skin sores in the first year of their life.

Poor health and poor education are strongly linked. A child suffering from poor nutrition or multiple ear infections will have poor concentration and learning ability which can seriously affect the way they live their lives into the future.

You can really make a difference by donating to the Rioli Fund, as every cent of the Rioli Fund’s proceeds go directly to Menzies School of Health Research for research into child health and mental health.

Visit the Rioli Fund website and click on the 'donate now' button on the homepage or give your spare change this Sunday to our tin rattlers outside the ground before the game.