Gold 2022 / Editorial / Environmental

Veronica - Where Home Brew Kills

  • Photographer
    Brian Cassey
  • Prizes
    Gold in Editorial/Environmental

Five year old Veronica at her home on Mornington Island (Gununa) in the Gulf of Carpentaria in far northern Australia. Her remote indigenous community is suffering the ravages of a wide spread ‘Home Brew’ alcohol epidemic. Veronica is growing up in a community where her fellow community members … including children … are suffering the consequences of alcohol induced diabetes and untimely death. The community … ‘under prohibition’ for twenty years … has seen a rapid rise of dangerous home brewed alcohols … and children as young as ten years old have been imbibing and adversely effected.