ILF announces virtual program for Indigenous Literacy Day 2021

The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) has announced an on demand program for Indigenous Literacy Day (ILD), which falls on Wednesday, 1 September this year.

The virtual program will celebrate and share the stories and languages of First Nations peoples and communities across Australia through three major components:

• A 25-minute event in collaboration with the Sydney Opera House’s Digital Creative Learning program hosted by performer and author Gregg Dreise and featuring singer Jessica Mauboy
• A suite of 40 short video stories from First Nations authors, musicians and artists including Stella Raymond, Wayne Quilliam, Brenton McKenna, Maureen Jipyiliya Nampijinpa O’Keefe, Natalie Ahmat, Lahrissa Behrendt and Anita Heiss
• A new series of pay-to-view learning workshops covering a range of topics including graphic novel art and learning new art techniques featuring Dreise, Quilliam, Shelley Ware, Ann James, Alison Lester, Declan Miller and Sean Stark.

‘We are storytellers of more than 65,000 years, and we love to share our knowledge with all Australians,’ said Ware.

In programming these events, outgoing executive director Karen Williams said the foundation ‘saw an important opportunity to share and celebrate the richness and diversity of work that is being done by and with Indigenous peoples and communities across Australia. The short videos included in Indigenous Literacy Day showcase the incredible range of stories, languages, cultures and voices of First Nations peoples, and the many different ways literacy can be interpreted.’

The free virtual events and paid workshops will go live on the ILD website from 9am on 1 September.

Photo credit: Tiffany Parker

Category: Local news