Sponsor a Literacy Backpack
For as little as $200 you can sponsor a child’s Literacy Backpack and support literacy and health education for the child and the family! DONATE NOW
What is in a Literacy Backpack?
A delicious variety of story books for all ages, written by Indigenous and non Indigenous authors, education resource books on all topics, magazines and newspapers for the families. These books and magazines are chosen by the students, teachers and families with the specific reading needs of the students taken into consideration.
The Literacy Backpack is not just about bringing books into bookless homes, it is about filling up school library shelves with books to excite the students, opening the students up to a world of books and switching them onto learning, in communities where there are no community libraries and no other access to reading materials.
The libraries can also provide reading materials for the families. This important program can be the bridge between community and school – the backpack provides the link between parent/teacher and student, with reading material going home via the backpack for all the family members. The program is developing a reading culture for all the community. An important step when you have in some instances illiteracy rates as high as 93%.
Through the funds raised we have also been able to purchase much needed education resources, reader programs and a number of electronic smart-boards for some of the schools. As you can imagine for children and teachers in remote communities the ‘smart-boards’ are connecting the students by bringing the world into the classrooms through all forms of learning. Our aim is to provide ALL SCHOOLS with the electronic smart boards.
Why a Literacy Backpack?
(For more information about the beginnings of the Project go to the Programs page and to the Progress Reports).
This simple concept is what the community elders of the Katherine region asked for.
With illiteracy rates as high as 93%, bookless homes, no access to libraries, the backpacks are a way of delivering a steady flow of reading materials into the schools and the homes, assisting in developing relationships between home and school. Families are sharing reading resources and children are seeing parents as role models, when they see reading material in the home and family members sitting and reading.
For some communities this flow of material is their only access, if it wasn’t for the Backpack Project they would still be bookless homes.
Imagine the impact on your lives or that of your child’s if you had not one book, magazine or newspaper in your home – how different would the future look for your child without ever having learnt to read?
Comment from a teacher at Manyallaluk:
“Mikala was SOOOOOOOOOOOO excited yesterday as she chose her new book. Her face was beaming with excitement and she told me she was going home to read the book to her family ‘all night’ as she skipped out the door”.
SUPPORT LITERACY AND HEALTH EDUCATION for Indigenous children, let’s give all Australian children the right to a good education and the stepping stones to dream whatever they dare to dream!
