Jesse calls for more to speak up on international stage

BY CARLI WILLIS

A Wagadagam and Yuin man has formed and organisation to help the international community gain insight into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs in Australia.

Chairman and founder of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander International Engagement Organisation (ATSIIEO), Jesse T Martin, travelled with his Executive Director Jack Collard, a Whadjuk Noongar man from Perth, to give an address at the United Nations conference for the Expert Mechanism on the Rights on Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) earlier this month.

He said the future of the organisation, now it had a foothold in the international community, was to facilitate opportunities for more Indigenous people and communities to participate in these spaces.

“We’ve made sure we open the door to these to these different countries or these different places,” Jesse said.

“From there, once we’ve got the door open, we are able to start linking in different Indigenous people or groups, organisations, or nations.”

He said ATSIIEO was the only organisation he came into contact with at EMRIP who represented Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Australians interests, aside from the government.

“As far as they’re concerned treaty does not come up in discussions, self determination does not come up,” he said.

“When they’re talking about Indigenous people on the international stage, they are not talking about our land rights, they’re not talking about our sea rights.

“They’re not talking about our participation and our self determination within that space, that can only come from us.”

He said it was crucial Indigenous people and grass roots communities were present on the