ILD 2022: An ‘infectious’ day of celebrating literacy

Last Wednesday, 7 September, the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) celebrated its annual Indigenous Literacy Day (ILD) with a live event at the Sydney Opera House and a national digital event.

With the theme of ‘Celebrating stories, cultures and languages’, the 20-minute digital event had over 2800 registrations and an audience of over 200,000 people—an increase in registrations compared to the 2021 digital event.

ILF ambassadors Jessica Mauboy and Gregg Dreise celebrated the theme with a performance of ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ sung in Kamilaroi language; meanwhile two children Derek and Dean travelled from Jilkminggan and Milikipati in the Northern Territory to share their languages in Tiwi and Mangarrayi.

At the second, invitation-only live event, Mauboy, Dreise and students from five Sydney schools performed as part of Josh Pyke and Justine Clarke’s fundraising initiative ‘Busking for Change’, which raised over $10,000 for ILF.

ILF CEO Ben Bowen, who was appointed the role last year, described the energy and passion at both the live and digital events as ‘infectious’.

In related news, the Pantera Foundation has donated $10,000 each to Seed Mob and the ILF, as part of the acquisition deal between Pantera Press and Aaron Fa’Aoso to publish his memoir So Far, So Good (co-written with Michelle Scott Tucker).

Image credit: Joseph Mayers

Category: News