ILF's Program Team is Growing!

ILF's new Regional Program Coordinator Tictac (top, third from left), at the Create Initiative 2018. Photography by Tace Stevens.

As we begin a New Year, we’re thrilled to be able to welcome two new members to our Program team, Seeba Tapim and Tictac (Dianne) Moore, who are joining us in the roles of Program Administrator and Regional Program Coordinator: Tiwi Islands, respectively. 

A Torres Strait Islander woman from Mer (Murray Island), Seeba grew up in Mackay, Queensland. She began her career as a teacher’s aide on Boigu Island (Torres Strait Islands), before completing a Bachelor of Education at Batchelor Institute in the Northern Territory.

“I started out as a teacher’s aide on Boigu Island, before taking on teaching roles in a lot of different communities across the Northern Territory and Queensland,” says Seeba. “I took the role with ILF because I love what the Foundation does for community. Being able to work with an organisation that helps preserve our languages for future generations is something incredibly special. I’m very excited for what’s to come.”

Our new Regional Program Coordinator Tictac is a Tiwi woman currently living in Milikapiti on Melville Island, Northern Territory. For the past 10 years she’s been an assistant teacher at Tiwi College working with the Senior Women’s Class.

“My relationship with ILF started in 2013, when the Foundation made a trip to Tiwi,” Tictac tells us. “With their help our students wrote a book called Bangs 2 Jurrukuk, and ever since, we’ve been making books with the ILF. I’ve seen first hand the impact that ILF have on community kids, and every year I’m blown away to see kids coming out of their shells and gaining confidence in their stories.”
 

New Program Administrator Seeba (right), with Program Manager Linda (left). Photography by Corina Zanatta.

Both Seeba and Tictac bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to their roles, and are both passionate about helping to bring Indigenous languages into books for everyone to read and enjoy.

“We’re storytellers,” says Seeba. “We pass down our stories by word. But seeing our kids pick up books that are in their languages – it makes me proud. My daughter has ADHD, and she never picks up a book, but my cousin gave her one of ILF’s books in Kriol, and she loves it. She carries it everywhere, she tells all her friends about it, and she’s very proud of it – and so it’s something I’m very proud to be a part of.”
 

“Years ago on my first trip with ILF, at the launch of Bangs 2 Jurrukuk, our girls had to give a slideshow on who they are, where they come from, and read a snippet of the book,” says Tictac. “We had a bunch of girls, who in a group were very loud and chatty, but around other people were very shy and not confident. We had one particular girl who was very shy, even in the classroom - she wouldn’t read in front of her classmates. But on that Sydney trip, in a boardroom with a whole bunch of strangers, she got up and read this snippet from Bangs, and I sat there - almost crying. That was the thing that got me believing in ILF’s impact; to see this one girl get up in front of all these people and speak, when six months before she wouldn’t even read in front of her classmates. And that happens every single trip. To be able to pick up a book and look at it, in your language, it brings out something special in you.”

A big welcome to Seeba and Tictac! We’re excited to have you both on board, and are sure there are great things to come.

• Posted 27 January, 2021