We can hardly wait to celebrate Indigenous Literacy Day for the 12th year running!
This year, our national celebration will be held on Wednesday 5 September, with events across the entire country. And we’re hoping to raise more than $300,000 to provide over 30,000 books to remote Indigenous communities nation-wide.
Two of our biggest events will be at Federation Square in the heart of Melbourne and at the Sydney Opera House.
In Melbourne, students from Victorian schools will be joined by our Lifetime Ambassadors and ever-popular authors Andy Griffiths and Anita Heiss, ILF Ambassador Shelley Ware (from the Marngrook Footy Show on NITV), artist/storyteller Gregg Dreise and Aunty Joy Murphy.
The celebrations will feature performances by a group of students from Worawa College, who have just published a new book, Deadly Sisters of Worowa. Anita and Shelley worked with these talented young women to develop their pieces of fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
Meanwhile, at Sydney Opera House, two more Lifetime Ambassadors, the renowned children’s author Alison Lester and musician Josh Pyke, along with Justine Clarke (of Playschool fame) and Natalie Ahmat (from NITV) will be performing alongside a group of remarkable women from the Binjari community near Katherine in the NT to celebrate their new books.
Last year, these women wrote and illustrated not one, but nine kids’ books in Kriol, their first language. In December the three board books, three picture books and three chapter books were launched to much acclaim in Katherine. Indeed, so popular has Moli det Bigibigi (Molly the Pig) proven, that an animated version of this book, which features a Weetbix-devouring pig, is well underway, with the narration in Binjari Kriol.
At the end of each of these celebrations, there’ll be a GREAT BOOK SWAP, where the students attending, swap a favourite book and make a gold coin donation to help boost the funds that support our literacy programs.
You can help close the literacy gap too! Find out how you can partcipate on Indigenous Literacy Day.
IMAGE: Indigenous Literacy Day at Sydney Opera House in 2017 with Yakanarra Community. Credit Prudence Upton Photography.
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