House and home
Remote Indigenous people in Central Australia are up to 30 times more likely to suffer from kidney disease than other Australians. Patients are forced to leave their country and travel to Alice Springs or Darwin, NT, for treatment indefinitely. Communities are left without elder leadership, families are broken, and culture is weakened.
Purple House is an Aboriginal community-controlled organisation based in Alice Springs, NT, striving to address this community health challenge.
Founded in 2003 by Pintup people of the Western Desert, with the help of CEO Sarah Brown, Rotary has supported the work of Purple House since the Rotary Club of Woden Valley, ACT, converted an abandoned building in Kintore into a dialysis centre and nurses’ accommodation more than a decade ago.
Since then, Rotary has helped Purple House develop dialysis centres in Warburton, Wanarn and Kiwirrkurra in remote WA, supported dialysis in Pukatja, SA, through a global grant, donated two vehicles and participated in a number of smaller projects and the donation of goods over many years.
Run from its headquarters in a suburban house in Alice Springs, Purple House’s mission is ‘Making all our families well’. Flexibility and cultural safety is at the centre of everything they do.
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