Indigenous Literacy Day (ILD) is more than a day. Don't wait for NAIDOC Week or ILD to celebrate the history, stories and cultures of Australia's First Nations peoples.
We invite you to recognise and celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture everyday, and ILD 2021 is a fantastic visual resource to help you.
With more than 60 video stories available, ILD captures the voice and hearts of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, Elders, authors, community organisations and individuals from across the country through stories - in beautiful books, in song and dance, in conversations, through hunting and cooking and most importantly, in language.
Every year since 2007, on the first Wednesday in September, Indigenous Literacy Day (ILD) has been celebrated.
The annual national event is hosted by our Foundation, and over the years has seen books by children and members from remote communities launched in iconic settings like Sydney Opera House and Federation Square, amidst much celebration and joy.
Last year, the COVID pandemic meant plans for ILD 2020 had to be completely re-imagined.
For the first time the event went virtual. But what a huge celebration it was, with more than 500,000 people watching online, including children and their families from some of the most remote parts of the country.
This year, ILF was hopeful to resume some of its live events. But COVID had other ideas.
With many borders closed once more, and lockdown restrictions in various states, territories and regions, the ILF team set out to develop a concept that circumnavigated the challenges of COVID-19 while further broadening the reach of ILD.
ILD 2021 was again a massive digital celebration.
The approach was collaborative and involved publishers of First Nations authors and other not for profit organisations working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, such as First Languages Australia, the Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC) and Early Childhood Australia, among others, who shared their stories as part of the nationwide virtual event.
To date there have been more than 28,000 views and it is growing every day.
Clearly Indigenous Literacy Day is more than a day. As Shelley Ware so eloquently states in her professional development workshop, "Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history and culture into your classroom is not just about NAIDOC Week and Reconciliation Week...make it an everyday thing; that it is part of your classroom."
For this reason, ILF is making all stories on ild.org.au available to everyone for 12 months.
“The short videos included in Indigenous Literacy Day highlight the incredible range of stories, languages, cultures and voices of First Nations peoples, and the many different ways literacy can be interpreted,” says ILF’s former Executive Director Karen Williams OAM.