Multicultural focus
From The Salvation Army’s involvement with the Debbing Creek and Purga missions came a number of influential indigenous people. As a child, internationally renowned opera singer Harold Blair was a popular instrumentalist and vocalist with the Ipswich Corps band. He later stated he would not be in his present position in life but for the help and educational assistance received during his boyhood at the Salvation Army home in Queensland. Another, ‘Jacko’ was a lifelong Salvationist whose Christian witness outside an Ipswich bar led to his being immortalised in Australian literature in the book My Australian Girlhood. Then there was Bunjoey (Susan), the last princess of the Ugarapul people who became a Salvationist at the Coochin outpost after being converted from a life of alcohol abuse. Since the closure of the missions, there was a 56-year gap in indigenous works until The Salvation Army Indigenous Ministries (SAIM) was founded in 2004 at North Ipswich by Judith Nariyn-Yumba, (pictured) an indigenous soldier of The Salvation Army. It was the first indigenous corps to be officially opened by The Salvation Army in Australia. The mission of SAIM is to reverse the effects of indigenous disadvantage in Ipswich. In February 2013, the Ipswich and North Ipswich Salvation Army corps merged, and ministry to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continues.
