Source: RC of Mt Martha & Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF)
Last month, as part of our clubs spotlight on basic Education and Literacy month, Mt Martha club member Carol Allen introduced us to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation through a wonderfully
inspiring video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtrOi2Y-B8A.
As it turns out September the 2nd also happened to be Indigenous Literacy day.
The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF), is a national not-for-profit charity which aims to improve literacy levels in very remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
One focus to the ILF is to produce and publish books for Indigenous people. These books are important because they represent Indigenous culture, community life and importantly are written in indigenous language.
To date they have published 90 books that reflect 18 Indigenous languages, written by children, families and community elders in remote communities across Australia. This year they hope to publish another 14 books in multiple languages including the first collection from the Torres Strait Islands.
To date they have published 90 books that reflect 18 Indigenous languages, written by children, families and community elders in remote communities across Australia. This year they hope to publish another 14 books in multiple languages including the first collection from the Torres Strait Islands.
As well as providing an uplifting tone in these rather strange times it got us thinking about how we might get involved in supporting this initiative. And, importantly what could we do locally to support the literacy ambitions of local indigenous children and families. Needless to say a number of club members quickly volunteered to form a working group to pursue this idea.
Hopefully over the coming months we will have more to report on how we get on…
Stephen Pugh
( RC Mt. Martha)
