By Jed Lanyon
Healesville Library will be celebrating NAIDOC Week on Monday 8 July 10.30am where local Wurundjeri woman Brooke Wandin will read Wilam: A Birrarung Story, a new book by Aunty Joy Murphy and Andrew Kelly.
National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee or NAIDOC is in the first full week of July and celebrates the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
The library invites locals to come along to hear a reading of the newly published book as well as watch the Djirri Djirri Dance Group, enjoy some morning tea bush tucker by HICSA and take part in crafts and activities for children.
Healesville Library’s Rowanne Grinsted is looking forward to hosting NAIDOC Week.
“HICSA, our local Indigenous organisation will be putting on a bush tucker morning tea, which will incorporate lemon myrtle scones served on bark and some beautiful Indigenous craft activities for everyone to participate in,” she said.
Ms Grinsted said that around two hundred people attended the event last year and that she hopes that plenty more will come this year.
“I was really quite excited because I thought we’d just get people from the Healesville area, but they came from far and wide.”
“There’ll be some chalk drawings and we’re doing dot drawings and we’ll be making little emus with some feathers.
“We like to host a lot of programs at this library because it covers such a big area,” she said.
Wilam: A Birrarung Story is a day in the life of the flourishing Birrarung (Yarra River).
An ode to Australian rivers, the flora and fauna that live on them and the function they perform as a part of modern-day life.
Ms Grinsted described the illustrations of the book as ‘magnificent’.
The event will take place in coordination with Eastern Regional Libraries and Yarra Ranges Council.
