Headspace and Orygen's ties to the zionist regime and the colonisation of Palestine
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Written by Mental Health Workers for Palestine (MHWFP), Hana Raju and Matt Chun, alongside Palestinian community members, and past and present headspace staff
headspace is Australia’s largest youth mental health organisation and enhanced primary care network. It was established by the Australian Government in 2006.
headspace operates more than 150 centres across Australia. headspace’s only location outside of Australia is Israel, where it directly collaborates with the zionist entity, offering free services to Israeli settlers.
Unsurprisingly, no such relationship between headspace and a Palestinian mental health organisation exists.Â
headspace Israel was founded by David Levy, who has also partnered with the Besen Family Foundation and ENOSH, the Israeli Mental Health Association, to start the ‘R U OK day’ initiative on violently occupied and ethnically cleansed Palestinian land.
headspace Israel has received funding from the Goodridge Foundation, which also funds the zionist organisation Hadassah. Hadassah International describes itself as an ‘advocate for Israel and Zionism’.
Hadassah Australia is also funded by the Gandel foundation.
Headspace CEO, Jason Trethowan, visited Headspace Israel in 2019, attending with the CEO of the Israeli Mental  Health Association, the Australian ambassador to Israel, David Levy and the Director of the National Insurance Fund and National Insurance Institute, a body that is known for excluding Palestinians from accessing welfare.
On Israel’s current genocidal campaign in Palestine, headspace remained silent until mid-December 2023, finally releasing the most tepid and equivocating statement.Â
The statement made no mention of the occupation of Palestine and no condemnation of the ongoing genocide.
The statement did not mention that headspace operates Israeli centres on stolen Palestinian land. Nor did it mention headspace’s financial and political connections to the zionist regime.
Orygen is a leading mental health service provider for young people in Victoria, receiving millions in funding from the Gandel Foundation, which has also been in ‘partnership’ with headspace.Â
As discussed in previous posts, both the Besen Family Foundation and the Gandel Foundation have been intimately connected to genocidal Israeli leaders. The Besens and Gandels directly fund and collaborate with some of the most violent colonial expansionist organisations on Palestinian land, while also funding occupation propaganda and indoctrination in Australia, including the ‘Zionist Federation of Australia’ and ‘Birthright’ tours.
Orygen worked alongside headspace Israel and ENOSH to create their Global Framework for Youth Mental Health, visiting occupied Jaffa in 2014 to work alongside the headspace Israel team.
headspace and Orygen are partners across various sites and programs. They receive hundreds of millions in funding from Australian Federal and State Governments.Â
Within Australia, both organisations display public Land Acknowledgements.Â
However, headspace does not acknowledge its operations on stolen Palestinian land or its complicity in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. In fact, public information about headspace and Orygen’s relationship with Israel, and their zionist funding, are scarce and opaque.
Even the the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a western imperialist institution, was forced to concede that South Africa’s was a ‘plausible’ case for genocide and that provisional measures were needed to avoid ‘irreparable prejudice’ from further Israeli acts in Gaza, jeopardising Palestinian rights under the Genocide Convention.
If headspace and Orygen continue to collaborate with the Israeli regime, they risk operating outside of so-called international law and in breach of the Genocide Convention.
Young people deserve mental health services that are caring and trauma-informed, not services that actively perpetuate trauma and contribute to the oppression of Palestinians.
Mainstream western mental health organisations such as headspace and Orygen ignore the suffering of Palestinians, while actively supporting and servicing Israeli youth, in collaboration with the zionist entity; a system of colonial violence.Â
How could the mental health services provided by headspace and Orygen ever be safe for Palestinians (or any other marginalised group), while they receive zionist funding, actively participate in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and contribute to the maintenance of a genocidal colonial project?Â
These services cannot (and do not) remain ‘neutral’ nor ‘apolitical’.
If headspace exists, as it purports, to lessen structural barriers to mental health services, these structural barriers must include imperialism, colonialism and state violence, which in turn lead to experiences of marginalisation, displacement, stigmatisation, poverty, social inequity and poor mental health.
We demand headspace and Orygen:
Close operations in
Israeland divest from all zionist funding.Engage in landback and sovereignty work as reparations.
Lobby for an immediate end to the occupation of Palestine and for the right of return.
Provide significant, meaningful and culturally safe care to survivors and victims of the genocide.
Fund Palestinian mental health and health organisations in Palestine.
Urgent Call to Action from Australia Palestine Mental Health Network (APMHN) & Mental Health Workers for a Free Palestine (MHWFP): Addressing concerns regarding headspace and Orygen's ties to Israel & Zionism.
(This letter is open for all members of the public, you don’t need to be a mental health practitioner to sign.)Â
ReferencesÂ
https://www.facebook.com/OrygenAus/photos/a.513736658656295/2759805450716060/
https://www.orygen.org.au/About/Orygen-Global/Files/orygen-wef-supp-04-pdf.aspx
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