Shack attack

By Casey Neill
HILLS volunteers travelled to Canberra last week to highlight the impact of tuberculosis in South Africa.
Members of the Belgrave-based Hills branch of international volunteer network RESULTS, Emmanuelle Emile-Blake and Ann Herbent, last week travelled to Canberra to support The Shack exhibition.
RESULTS Australia created The Shack to bring the issue of tuberculosis (TB) into focus in the lead up to yesterday’s World TB Day.
The pair also met with La Trobe MP Jason Wood to discuss the Asia-Pacific Microcredit Summit to be held in July.
“This exhibition brings the living conditions of a family living in a poor township in Cape Town to us,” Mr Wood said.
“The shack, the photographs on the wall and the furniture inside builds an understanding of what it would be like to live with the realities of tuberculosis.”
Mr Wood said the exhibition, which ran from 12 to 19 March, was a reminder of how much work needed to be done to make poverty history and eliminate poverty-born diseases like TB.
The Shack is a full scale replica of a South African shanty which has been built in the centre of Parliament House, Canberra.
South African photographer Damien Schumann built and furnished the structure from material found in poor areas of Cape Town.
Inside the shack is Schumann’s photographic exhibition Dialogues – Understanding Tuberculosis, which provides an insight into the lives of the South African people living with tuberculosis.
RESULTS is an acronym for Responsibility for Ending Starvation Using Lobbying, Trimtabbing and Support.