Fast workers: Students from the Tiwi Islands put down their ideas with author and illustrator Allison Lester. Photo: Don Arnold <\/p>\n
You can't get much farther north than the Tiwi Islands and still remain in Australia. The islands lie 80 kilometres across the Beagle Gulf from Darwin, and are home to about 3000 people. <\/p>\n
However, today nine schoolgirls from the islands are sitting around a table in the middle of Sydney as part of a workshop overseen by the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. <\/p>\n
The view of the city from the 13th floor office of Harper Collins is distractingly gorgeous, but they're hard at work sketching out illustrations and working through the text for what will shortly become a book, helped along by children's author Alison Lester and the ILS's program manager, Tina Raye. <\/p>\n
The story didn't exist mere hours ago: the entire process from coming up with the idea through to sending the finished text and pictures off to print will take a grand total of two days. <\/p>\n
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The story they've worked up together tells the day-to-day life of Mia, a fictional Tiwi Islands girl. She attends school, deals with the pressures of her family and community, and aspires to be a singer like her hero, Jessica Mauboy. She could be any one of the students laughing and talking around the table. <\/p>\n
It will be the second book that has come out of the ILS's work with the Tiwi Islands. Bangs the Owl star of Bangs 2 Jurrukuk, the result of last year's workshop has pride of place in the middle of the table. <\/p>\n
All of the girls are students at Tiwi College. They board at the school during the week which makes sense, as teacher Dianne \"Tic Tac\" Moore explains that the trip from the town to the school can take half a day via troop carrier during the wet season. The girls also field an Australian rules team which, as Moore proudly asserts, have never been defeated in competition. <\/p>\n
The girls are not only using their time in Sydney to write this book: they're also presenting Bangs 2 Jurrukuk at the Opera House on Wednesday as part of the Indigenous Literacy Day celebrations. <\/p>\n
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