With lockdowns leaving thousands unable to access food and other essentials, citizens and community groups are stepping up
It’s a Wednesday afternoon, the day before Redfern-based Koori artist Blak Douglas – AKA Adam Douglas – is about to saddle up his flamboyant yellow ute, Xanthia, and embark on a food hamper blitz around Sydney. His plan is to collect dozens of donated hampers, organised by his friend and fellow artist Justine Muller, to be delivered to the remote western New South Wales town of Wilcannia, where around 10% of its vulnerable, mostly Indigenous population is infected with Covid.
The town’s only general store has already closed once because of a Covid exposure and is at risk of ongoing snap shutdowns as the pandemic worsens, leaving the population unable to access any food or amenities at all. “The influx of donations has been astonishing; I think I’m getting about 20 or 25 hampers, and Justine has a drop-off point in Woolloomooloo for hundreds of other hampers,” Douglas says. A truck will be doing a run from Sydney to Wilcannia in the following days. “I’m just exuberant about what can be achieved in a short space of time, in the middle of a pandemic.”