All Australians are invited to participate in the second Indigenous Literacy Day, September 3 2008,  an opportunity to help raise urgently needed funds for Indigenous literacy.  More

The beautiful, lively spirit of the children in the Jawoyn communities had a profound effect on the group of booksellers, publishers, authors, Ambassadors and Fred Hollows Foundation staff who visited them in August as part of the ongoing work of the Indigenous Literacy Project.

You can read a report of the trip here.

The Indigenous Literacy Project (ILP) is a partnership between the Australian Book Industry and The Fred Hollows Foundation that raises funds to purchase and supply books and other culturally appropiate material to remote communities where The Foundation works.

We started in 2004 with a simple question:  What could we do to help address the current literacy crisis in remote Indigenous communities.  We were deeply concerned that illiteracy in many of these communities was a common and critical barrier to the kind of full, healthy and happy life many of us take for granted.  Low literacy is consistently linked to poor health, social and economic outcomes.

More simply we couldn’t imagine a world without books and reading.  More

In 2007 the Australian Book Industry raised $250,000, far exceeding our target of $100,000. A very generous donation of $65,000 was received from the NSW Bar Association 2007 SILKS.

The funds raised will be put to work by our partners at The Fred Hollows Foundation who work in close collaboration with many remote Indigenous communities. The Fred Hollows Foundation will provide literacy resources for many communities in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and five communities in Western New South Wales and Queensland.  More

The Indigenous Literacy Project is a partnership between