5th National SNAICC Conference

This week the Honey Ant Readers  have been in balmy Cairns for the 5th National Conference run by the Secretariat for National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care entitled, ‘For our Children: Living and Learning Together’.

Although a big conference of over 1,200 delegates, this has been one of the best organised and most dynamic conferences we have been lucky enough to attend. We have been to fantastic presentations, heard dynamic, lively sharing of ideas, and been privileged to connect with people doing inspiring things from every corner of the country.

On the first day, Honey Ant Readers Translators, cultural mentors and language teachers from Alice Springs, Jennifer Inkamala and Marjorie Williams co-presented about teaching oral language through singing, and the importance of preserving and respecting first languages with Margaret James. We had a wonderful audience with lots of thought provoking questions at our interactive workshop presentation. Marjorie sang the ‘Nana dig’ song she translated into Luritja and Jennifer spoke compellingly about the importance of first language in learning to read. Marjorie and Jennifer had many family members come up to our table to say ‘hello’ over the 3 days.

We really enjoyed meeting Michelle Woody, a wonderful Tiwi lady who works with the Red Cross and Relationships Australia. She translated HAR 1 into her language (Tiwi) over lunch and we very much look forward to working with her in the future and to visiting her beautiful islands again.