Saving lives in the Red Centre

“I had this intuitive feeling that if the virus came to Central Australia, it would cause absolute devastation ... ”

- Donna Ah Chee

When it comes to protecting the community, Bundjalung woman Donna Ah Chee has a sixth sense. At the start of 2020, as news reports of COVID-19 started circulating around the world, Donna instinctively knew that the previously unheard-of virus would pose a deadly threat to the Indigenous communities she works with as the CEO of health organisation Central Australian Aboriginal Congress.

“I had this intuitive feeling that the virus was going to be serious and that if it came to Central Australia it would cause absolute devastation in our remote communities,” says Donna, who took a note from a small village in Italy, which shut the community down to protect its residents.