We feel your pain and heartache at this devastating time that has taken two of your brothers from you. We understand the grief you are feeling, the sadness, the anger, the hollow feeling in your stomachs, the dark times you are going through. We feel your pain. 

We also see some of you expressing this pain through violence. Violence is not the answer. Creating harm and pain for others will not make your pain go away. It will create more pain and sometimes it can take away your freedom and safety, and the freedom and safety of others.  

We know many of you are struggling and lost. You have grown up with families who love you but some of them are struggling too and haven’t always been there for you. You have grown up with racism. You hear it, you read it, you see it, you feel it. You have grown up going to school, where you have been forced to leave your culture and your identity at the gate. When you were little you would laugh and your eyes would sparkle. But now your eyes are dim, untrusting and full of hurt and you maybe feel like the only way to be seen is by fighting, stealing cars and getting into trouble.

We don’t want to see you in paddy wagons and prisons and graves. We don’t want to cry for you or the people that you hurt.  

We want you to know that there are many people in the Alice Springs community who care about you. We have a responsibility as adults and organisations to support you, to help you through this, to give you hope. We will not turn our back on you. We do not want to be making decisions for you, we want you to help us find a way forward, together. Where you can make safe decisions for yourselves and the community. Where you can connect in a meaningful way to our culture and know where you belong.

We want you to know that we are listening and that your feelings and your future matter. Together we can work through this, with families and with the Alice Springs community.