NT Australian of the Year Awards Ceremony

The Honey Ant support team: Gail Barker, Ken Langford-Smith and Pieta Laughton with Margaret James

On Thursday November 10th the recipients for the NT Australian of the Year Awards 2012 were announced in a ceremony at the Darwin Convention Centre.

The honor of NT Australian of the Year 2012 went to Dr John Boffa , who has played an active and inspirational role in changing attitudes toward alcohol in Northern Territory communities through supply reduction, early learning and mental health programs. Laurie Baymarrwangga received NT Senior Australian of the Year 2012 for her extraordinary commitment to maintaining the culture and environment of the Crocodile Islands, while Rebecca Healy was voted NT Young Australian of the Year 2012 and Rob Cook was announced NT Local Hero 2012.

While Margaret did not receive the award, her place among the 4 outstanding finalists highlights the challenges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students face on entering school, and acknowledges one innovative and effective way in which the challenges can be addressed.

In her finalist speech she said,

I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of this land, the Larrikia people.
I feel very honoured and humbled, especially with such deserving fellow finalists.
I feel that the nomination recognises much more than me. I share it with the Elders and community who worked with me to create the Honey Ant Readers, developed for their children. I especially treasure the children in this – as much for their input into the project in terms of stories and chatter, and of course their feedback on the final product – as for the inspiration they give me. Sometimes they call out ‘Nana uney hant’ when I walk through school grounds, which is really lovely – as long as they are not referring to my ‘honey ant’ figure!
(or once as I crossed a bridge in Alice, little voices sung out from the sandy riverbed below – “ey you dat nana wat bin writin dem uney hant pooks’!)
It is for these children that I do this work in my own time, so that they can have a choice in their lives. With their knowledge of oral languages, reading may not be essential, but it gives them choices in life and access to Western knowledge and way of life.
To remove one of the major hurdles facing many Indigenous children in Australia, we have developed these books in the conversational language of the playground.
Thank you:
Rosie my daughter and editor, my mother Nana Betts, my illustrator Wendy, Ken and Gail, Pieta, my children, Rob, Tim and the 2 who legitimise my title ‘Nana’, Lucia and Richard.
Indigenous people across Australia learning to read face huge disadvantages. I believe passionately and will continue to advocate for this, that we compound the disadvantages when we belittle their own languages, including Aboriginal English.
In the Honey Ant Readers we address this issue and it is working. The Indigenous community feels ownership of the books in terms of content, style of storytelling and language. I share this honour with all AE speakers across Australia and thanks to your nomination I now feel stronger in advocating for them, and in seeking funding to keep developing more books!
As they might say: ‘yea deadly, this b’long us mob. We real happy.’