UQ researcher and Adjunct Professor Sandra Creamer AM has won the Human Rights Award at the 2023 Queensland Community Impact Awards held by the Queensland Council of Social Services (QCOSS).
Adjunct Professor Creamer was recognised for her extraordinary efforts to uphold and extend human rights for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the local, national, and international arenas.
“I'm very honoured to have won. I can't express how honouring it is to win a Human Rights Award like this, it's very meaningful,” Adjunct Professor Creamer said.
The award comes as a result, in part, of her involvement with the School of Public Health’s Project 37, a NHMRC Ideas Project (grant ref: 2004327) titled 'Advancing non-discriminatory, rights-based access to health services for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander peoples.'
“One of the projects that I'm very proud of doing is the research we've done just recently in Queensland,” Adjunct Professor Creamer said.
“We went around to 14 Indigenous communities and talked about access to health, about the (e.g.) barriers of having interpreters in hospitals.
“It's really good to be able to recognize people in your communities, organisations who are working for the rights of people. That's very important to acknowledge.”
It was Adjunct Professor Creamer’s colleagues on Project 37 who nominated her for the prestigious award.
Awards and recognition are not new for Adjunct Professor Creamer, having already been awarded an Order of Australia for her leadership for First Nations women on issues of health, rights and self-determination.
She is a Queensland lawyer, the Chair of the Indigenous Peoples Rights International (IPRI), an advisor the Seventh Generation Fund and a Board member of the International Indigenous Women's Forum (FIMI).
In addition, she’s the former CEO of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Alliance (NATSIWA) and has worked closely with the former UN Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples.
She has also authored several book chapters and journal articles on topics ranging from water safety to climate change impacts in remote indigenous communities.
You can read more about Adjunct Professor Creamer’s health and self-determination research with the School of Public Health, which she has been actively involved in since 2017.
