ILF Ambassador Gregg Dreise visits Indooroopilly State High School

On Friday last week, I was lucky enough to be able to visit Indooroopilly State High School with ILF Ambassador, Gregg Dreise.

Indooroopilly State High School has been a great supporter the ILF over the past few years, raising money through their successful Great Book Swaps, and this year won an ambassador visit from Gregg Dreise.

The sunny and warm weather of Brisbane was the perfect setting for discussions that he led about indigenous literacy and culture. We basked outside in the sunlight under expansive trees and were entertained by Gregg and his tales.

I’ve had the good fortune of seeing Gregg performing for students before at Indigenous Literacy Day last year, where he had the audience of hundreds laughing and falling from their seats! This time was no different. We saw three classes of students from years seven and eight. In addition to discussions about the ILF, Gregg led the students through a welcome dance and soon even the shiest of students were singing along while he performed on his didge. Even better was the novelty of the “slide digeridoo” which made all sorts of cool and funny sounds!

To the excitement of the students, Gregg also taught them how to throw a boomerang. Carefully, making sure that the oval was devoid of unsuspecting students, he guided the young kids through the action – it didn’t take long for all of them to have an absolute ball trying (and often failing) to get the boomerang to return.

I also had the opportunity to talk to the students briefly about my journey with the ILF and the importance of the programs we run. Everyone was interested to see where their donations went!

In the afternoon, we took part in the school’s Great Book Swap – where hundreds of books were laid out on tables and students gathered around eagerly to see what mysteries awaited in the pages. It was wonderful to see the students and teachers equally enthused by the process, while donations flowed into the box for the ILF. Later on, Gregg ran a whirlwind illustration class with some of the year eight students. The secret to making a cute character into an evil one, he told the students, is angles! More angles mean a scarier character.

It was an absolute privilege to be able to visit Indooroopilly – it was a wonderful day of learning and fun.

By Lachlan Coman, ILF Student Mentor

• Posted 12 September, 2019