CYL launches Inky Awards Ambassador Program

The Centre of Youth Literature (CYL) at the State Library of Victoria has launched its new Inky Awards Ambassador Program, with four schools from across Australia selected as ‘Ambassador Schools’ for 2016.

The four schools are: Kalamunda Senior High School (WA), Wilderness School (SA), Taylors Lakes Secondary College (VIC) and The King’s School (NSW).

Schools participating in the program will each select a committee of ‘teen ambassadors’, who will devise and run three events in their community around the 2016 Inky Awards. These committees will ‘work closely’ with the CYL to plan events to showcase ‘their love of books, and create a space that unites their reading community’.

CYL said the program is aimed at making schools the centre of ‘local teenage reading culture’, and hopes it will expand beyond the initial four schools. CYL coordinator Adele Walsh told Books+Publishing, ‘In this tenth year of the Inky Awards, [we] are shining a greater light on what makes the awards so special—the teens. Our resource kits, created by [Stella Schools program coordinator] Bec Kavanagh, can be utilised by teens, teachers and librarians to celebrate teen perspective and fantastic young adult titles.’

The Ambassador Program resource kits are available to download from the Inside a Dog website here, with any school or library invited to ‘participate as much or as little as they wish’, said Walsh.

Category: Junior Local news