Tellin' Country at Yarrabah

This week Kaylah and I headed north to beautiful Yarrabah to do some school holiday activities. We flew from Brisbane to Cairns then had a nice scenic drive south through cane fields, farm land, along the coastline and over mountain ranges to the Aboriginal community. We are very fortunate to have a friend and great host, Elverina who put us up for a few nights.

Elverina works at the Yarrabah Arts & Cultural Precinct and was very helpful with preparations and getting the children along to our workshops. She also assisted in teaching cultural knowledge and protocol. The success of any of my digital projects, really rely on local community interest and we are very lucky to have such wonderful support there.

Elverina took our groups through the Yarrabah Rainforst Boadwalk and during the tour we learnt about different plants and animals that live there. They each had an iPad and took photographs and videos along the journey. After the tour we used coloured paper and plasticine to recreate the boardwalk. We filmed each other talking about some of the special elements; like the cassowary which is kindaja in Gunganji language or the pandanus palm or yukul which is good for basket making.

On Thursday there was a rally and march against the drug ice which has started to enter the community. Organisations, Elders and community members came together to get this important message across. It was great to see this unity and many passionate people sharing stories and educating each other about the negative affects it has on your mental health. It was great that Kaylah could also contribute to the event by speaking and performing. We set up our activity table in the park and lots of kids joined in the rainforest creation.

I will now be doing some basic editing to piece together a virtual tour through the cartoon like pop-up rainforest which can be used as a resource to teach other children in Yarrabah about their environment. It will also be apart of the Tellin Country collection for the library.

As always, we really enjoyed our time in Yarrabah and sad that our short trip has come to an end. Special thanks to Elverina and all the kids that showed up and got involved. We look forward to our next visit!