Before defining disadvantage I think that it must be understood that disadvantage can not be defined base on statistical stasus indicators such as poor health, education or incarceration rates. These things are indicators that there is something wrong and that disadvantage may exist. By defining these outward signs as the disadvantage we may inadvertantly excuse the personnal behaviours that contribute to them. In the same way the values we uphold must not lead to principles that define the rights of the disadvantaged in terms of the outward signs. Good health and edcuation for example must never be made ‘rights’ that others must or should recieve. These things can only ever be privelleges offered and recieved as gifts. If we start to consider them as things that we deserve we can no longer truly value the gift that they are, and in our experience, they can become despised things that we believe are forced on us. The defning of such outcomes as ‘rights’ is an ideological problem that can be seen as contributing to failures in Indigenous communities, where the more we force education and health services on people in order to give them their ‘rights’ the more they resist utilising these services (they may even stop valuing good health and begin to expect poor health as a result of this exchange). So the definition is important for underpining out ideology and then the way we act towards the disadvantaged.

I define disadvantage as a state of existence were ones full human potential is significantly restricted so that as individuals, or collectively as a group, people experience a dehumanisation of their existance, and they are unable to compete, relative to more the more advantaged (not because of any reduction in their real potenital), in any one or more of the disciplines of life, economic, social, political, religious and intellectual. Thus the values that underpin the assesment of disadvantage are those that allow us to see the others as humans, as deep, as beautiful and as broken as ourselves, and to listen and hear their experience. These values include Love, Humility, Compassion, honesty and patience. While you might have expected values more like “equality” and “justice” these in my view are principles that arise out of these valuse that we cultivate within ourselve in order to see others. These kind of values must become the foundation of the Rights and Justice principles we up hold in amining to free people from disadvantage.