ILF announces digital event for ILD 2022

The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) has announced two events in collaboration with the Sydney Opera House for Indigenous Literacy Day (ILD), which falls on Wednesday, 7 September this year. The theme for the 2022 ILD is ‘Celebrating stories, cultures and languages’.

The first event, the ILD National Digital Event, is a 20-minute digital story available through the Sydney Opera House’s Digital Creative Learning program. Free to schools, organisations and the general public, the event features a group of children in remote Milikapiti and Jilkminggan in the Northern Territory, and ILF ambassadors Jessica Mauboy and Gregg Dreise, who will be ‘sharing a snippet of life in remote Australia and the richness and diversity of First Nation peoples’ stories, cultures, and languages in song, music and books’. The event will air on ILD at 10:30am.

A second, invitation-only live performance event featuring Mauboy, Dreise, Justine Clarke, Josh Pyke and June Oscar will also take place at the Opera House. Mauboy, Dreise and students from five Sydney schools will be performing as part of ILF’s fundraising activity ‘Busking for Change’, in addition to a book reading of Winthali (Fire) by Oscar and Joe Ross.

This year also marks the first year of UNESCO’s Decade of Indigenous Languages, intended to ‘draw attention to the critical status of many Indigenous languages across the world and encourage action for their preservation, revitalisation and promotion’.

ILF CEO Ben Bowen, who joined the organisation in October 2021, said: ‘There is nothing like children sharing pride in the language and culture to bring home the immense value of promoting and maintaining First Nations Peoples’ rich and diverse heritage. We invite all Australians to make time to watch this event and appreciate the multi-literacy and multilingual diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.’

To register for the free ILD digital event, see the ILF website.

Category: Local news