Caroline de Mori – 6PR’s West Aussie Greats
Company director; founder EON Foundation
Reducing nutritional poverty in Aboriginal communities, from the ground up.
Recognising that poor nutrition was a key reason for health disadvantages in Aboriginal communities, Caroline De Mori founded EON, which partners with Indigenous communities and schools to create access to fresh and affordable fruit and vegetables through edible gardens and other initiatives.
The former Perth journalist and public relations supremo tells Gareth Parker on 6PR Breakfast’s ‘West Aussie Great’ segment she became passionate about providing nutrition education and training opportunities for Aboriginal communities to create long-term, healthy lifestyle change after meeting legendary WA Indigenous politician Ernie Bridge.
“I saw first hand for the first time what was going on… it’s just the most shameful thing to be in such a successful, powerful, rich state and yet there’s children with health statistics and infection and disease loads that are just outrageous, worse than the poorest developing nation on the planet,” she told Parker.
“It’s the nutritional poverty that leads to for example some 70 per cent of Aboriginal kids starting school with hearing loss.
“I was very lucky to come across a wonderful man, the late great Ernie Bridge … who was a great role model for me and my partner in crime [EON director] Katrina Burton.
“We offer this as opportunity [for communities] to grow their own food, harvest their own food, cook their own food, eat their own food and get the health benefits of getting off [bad nutrition].”