The program ‘Buzz Books' will be trialed in three communities, Wugularr in the Northern Territory; Wilcannia in New South Wales and Warburton in Western Australia. Bundles of 12 books will be given to all children in the community who are under school age and schools in the communities will be given class sets of the books, which students will read and learn in class. The hope is that this exposure to the same 12 books both at home and at school will enable older school-age siblings to act as reading mentors to younger siblings at home.
‘When we have evaluated the results we hope to be able to deliver [the program] more widely next year,' said Suzy Wilson, founder of the annual Indigenous Literacy Day event, which has raised the money to be used for this new program.
In 2008 Indigenous Literacy Day (ILD) raised $30,000 through the donations of booksellers, publisher and the public, to support literacy projects administered by the Fred Hollows Foundation. ILD will this year be held on Wednesday 2 September. Wilson, speaking at yesterday's launch, said a new initiative ‘The Great Book Swap' would be a new way for schools, libraries and the public to be involved in ILD. To participate, individuals or students will be asked to bring their favourite book to their school, library or workplace and swap it with a fellow student or workmate, making a gold coin donation to the Indigenous Literacy Project (ILP).
‘I think there's an enormous potential for other activities to go along with this fundraising activity,' said Wilson.
At yesterday's launch at Customs House in Sydney ILP ambassadors David Malouf and Kate Grenville joined Rein in reading aloud the stories produced by three Wilcannia students, 10-year-olds Victor Ward and George Thomas and George's little sister Kirsty Thomas, five. The three students had written the stories--‘Hunting Emu Eggs', ‘Pig Hunting' and ‘The River'--during a workshop the previous day with Andy Griffiths, another ILP ambassador.
Fellow ILP ambassador and author Sam Wagon-Watson, also speaking at the launch, said such sharing of stories was important. ‘So many of our people are going to get a voice from this project,' he said.
For more information on this year's Indigenous Literacy Day and the various ways to be involved, visit http://www.indigenousliteracyproject.org.au/.
