The Fraser Coast Chronicle’s major win in the 2008 United Nations Association Media Peace Awards turned into the triumph of the evening.
The packed room at Melbourne’s Arts Centre burst into spontaneous and prolonged applause, even with cheers, when ABC TV’s Kerry O’Brien announced the Fraser Coast Chronicle, the Butchulla people and the sponsors of the paper’s weekly series “Let’s Learn Butchulla: Hands in Time, Journeying Together” had won the Promotion of Aboriginal Reconciliation award.
On the 13th February 2008 Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an apology to Australia’s Indigenous Peoples on behalf of the Parliament of Australia. The State Library of Queensland, with assistance from Queensland University of Technology and Queensland’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, has captured responses to this historic event
The digital stories created as part of the joint project between State Library and QUT to capture responses to the 2008 Apology are now online at State Library’s Queensland Stories website.
Cooktown Local News, Wednesday, October 22, 2008. Page 7.
By Sarah Martin
EFFORTS are being made to save the Waymburr area’s ancient Aboriginal dialect before it disappears forever.
“We are fast losing words and older speakers and the young people aren’t fluent in the language,” warned Guugu Yimidhirr elder Eric Deeral.
“There was once about 600 fluent speakers, mainly at Hope Vale, but today the number has dwindled.”
Traditional owners have joined the State Library of Queensland in a bid to preserve the language before it is too late – and they want the community’s help.
Read the full article: Bid to Save Ancient Languange
From Government News Magazine.
The Alice Springs-based group who created Ngapartji Ngapartji (a play which has sold out to national audiences and is a 2008 nominee for a prestigious Deadly Award), are calling on the Federal Government to urgently introduce a National Indigenous Languages policy.
The group released a discussion paper to Government in late July and are concerned that they haven’t yet heard a response.
People from language communities around Queensland came together at a forum in Brisbane recently. The meeting at the State Library of Queensland was coordinated as part of the Queensland Indigenous Languages Advisory Committee 2008 planning workshop, and allowed those who came to see and hear a range of ideas for reviving and teaching languages.
While in Brisbane some of the team were invited to 98.9fm to record the morning “Lets Talk” program with Friday morning presenter Karen Durante. The one hour interview can be heard from the 98.9fm website.
Pictured at the 98.9fm studio are Jedda Priman, Bridget Priman, William Holden and Christopher Kennedy with presenter Karen Durante.