2009 Brisbane ILP Launch

The launch of the Indigenous Literacy Project for 2009 was held at the State Library of Queensland as part of the Think Do tank at the Ideas Festival on Friday, March 26th.

A panel of speakers and musicians which included Ernie Dingo, Shellie Morris, Adam James and Dr Chris Sarra completely captivated the audience of 200 Year 6 & 7 children with their words and songs. Suzy Wilson chaired the session, explaining to the audience what the project is all about and encouraging children to “Think” about the subject and take their new insights back to school and then to get involved in the “DO – ing” side of things as suggested by the Festival’s theme.

Ernie showed an extraordinary connection with the children from the moment he started speaking … addressing them in language for the first few minutes. They were intrigued and even more so when he then taught them some words from his language explaining afterwards that there were over 300 Indigenous languages used in Australia and the impact this has for learning.

Shellie Morris sang (in her beautiful voice) songs that she had written with children from the Jawoyn communities and explained her role running the music literacy project. Chris Sarra shared the wisdoms he learned as Principal of Cherbourg State School for inspiring young Indigenous children to believe in themselves, to attend school and to be motivated to learn literacy and numeracy. All of the speakers encouraged the children to use this session as a springboard to Thinking and Doing something about the theme for the day.

The combination of Chris Sarra’s gentle wisdom, Ernie’s humour and the brilliant Indigenous song he sang in response to a kid’s request; the fabulous music that Shellie and Adam made (Adam is a Deadly award winning talent whom is really worth watching out for) all combined to create a pretty remarkable atmosphere and experience, that will stay with all whom attended for a long time.

From left to right - Adam James, Dr Chris Sara, Shellie Morris, Ernie Dingo and Suzy Wilson