Ningali Cullen facts for kids

Ningali Cullen (1942-2012) was an Aboriginal activist. She was also the co-chair of the National Sorry Day Committee.

Early life

She was born in Ooldea, South Australia in 1942. When she was four years old, she was taken away from her family, with her brother and a sister. Cullen and her brother were taken to the Koonibba Lutheran Mission Home near Ceduna, South Australia. She went to school at Concordia College. She was the first female Aboriginal student who had ever gone there.

Working as a nurse

After she graduated college from Concordia, she became a nurse. She worked at Royal Adelaide Hospital, Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, and other places. She moved to Port Augusta in 1964. She saw a lot of discrimination against Aboriginal people when she worked in hospitals. It made her very angry. She married Lawrie Kinnear while she was a nurse. She had three children with Kinnear.

Working as an activist

It had been a very long time since she had seen her mother, May Cobby. She found out where her mother was living and she visited her. In 1965, Cobby disappeared. She was taken while waiting at a restaurant with her daughter Mabel, who was the only child out of the four who was not taken from her when they were little. The police were called by the staff who worked at the restaurant. The police were asked to ask May and Mabel to leave the area. Mabel was arrested and May was left at the restaurant. Cullen asked for information on her mother's arrest and the police refused to give her any information. No one could find May.

Cullen became an activist after her mother disappeared. She worked to get more healthcare for Aboriginal people. She also helped people to stop using drugs and alcohol. She worked for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) in 1990. In 1992, she moved to Canberra, where she worked in healthcare for ATSIC.

She did a lot of work with organizations helping to locate people who were missing from the Aboriginal communities. She helped found National Sorry Day and was a member of the Stolen Generation. She worked with families and people involved in that group.

Later life and death

In 2003, Cullen married for a second time. She married a man named Derick Cullen. She died on May 10, 2012.