November has been a month of celebration. From NAIDOC Week to a book launch in a remote community, we have much to share!
News from the ILF
November 2020
Dear friend
November has been a month of celebration. From NAIDOC Week to a launch of new books at Bidyadanga, our team has been busy producing learning videos, working with communities on books, and building relationships with remote organisations.
This month, Professor Joe Lo Bianco has been working on our critical review and we met with our hardworking and incredibly dedicated Board for the last meeting of the year. We also have a number of exciting projects in the pipeline, including new graphic novels, board and picture books, and we cannot wait to share the results with you in 2021.
As we come to the end of what has been a tumultuous but still very productive year, we are launching our 2020 Festive Appeal. Please support us if you are able. As our Lifetime Ambassador, Professor Anita Heiss has said:
“If you believe every child, wherever they live, has the right to thrive and to excel in education, that every child should benefit from equity of opportunity, and that together we can achieve justice for First Peoples by setting up First Nations children to succeed in education, to have a better future – then you believe what we believe."
Please give generously. Together, we can make a difference to the future opportunities of our First Nations children living in some of the most remote communities across Australia.
Karen Williams
Executive Director
Bidyadanga Remote Community. Photography: Wayne Quilliam
Bidyadanga Book Launch
In November, La Grange Remote Community School held their own book launch, for three books; My Body, Colouredywun and Fish Usmob Gettem, which were together published in seven different languages. We are proud to have been part of this project along with ILF Lifetime Ambassador Alison Lester, celebrating all the languages spoken at Bidyadanga.
Karajarri Edition of the 'My Body' Book
Mamarika Community, Groote Eylandt
A Mobile Library in Jabiru!
We recently had a chat with Trish Whittaker, a Family Educator for Jabiru Families as First Teachers (FaFT) program. Check out how this unique FaFT uses our books out on the road!
NAIDOC Week
To celebrate NAIDOC Week, our team produced a video montage featuring First Nations Peoples, and interviewed Liandra Gaykamangu, Adam Byrne and Uncle Bruce Shillingsworth. Check out these fantastic clips!
Image courtesy of Jabiru FaFT
Casuarina Street Preschool
Build your Library's Indigenous Book Collection!
Register Your Library is a new and exciting initiative to help primary schools build their Indigenous children's book collection, and support our Foundation at the same time!
Great Book Swap (GBS)
A HUGE thank you to everyone who held a Great Book Swap this year! Leopold Primary School in regional Victoria has won our annual House competition, and will receive a virtual visit from ILF Ambassador Jessica Mauboy on November 30! Dampier Primary School and St Mary's Primary School won virtual visits from ILF Ambassadors Josh Pyke and Justine Clarke respectively.
Warburton, WA
This month we would like to thank a number of generous supporters. They include the Australian Business Book Awards and their major sponsor Smart WFM, and FDC Construction and Fitout, who generously donated $10,000 during NAIDOC Week.
A big thank you to everyone - individuals, organisations, and schools - who celebrated Indigenous culture during NAIDOC Week and chose to express their support by donating to our Foundation.
Anita Heiss and John Graham at UQ's Great Book Swap. Image courtesy of Anita Heiss
Thank you to fabulous ILF Lifetime Ambassador Professor Anita Heiss, and the team at the University of Queensland, who held a Great Book Swap and raised almost $4,000!
Our thanks also to Climate Friendly, an environment consultancy who held an internal online auction and raised over $4,000. We love the creativity and generosity that went into this one!
Milikapiti Remote Community FaFT
Give the Gift of Reading!
We have some beautiful new cards available to gift to friends and family!
Most of us take reading (and writing) so much for granted that it's almost impossible
to imagine life without that form of communication. Literacy opens so many doors
that otherwise stay closed: doors into education and jobs, but also into the minds and
imaginations and hearts of other humans all over the planet. Verbal literacy isn't the only door, by any means - but having access to it is a choice that no one should miss
out on."– Kate Grenville, ILF Lifetime Ambassador
