Heywood Language Workshop

02 June 2005

On the 31st May & 2nd June, VACL held a language Workshop for the South-West Region of Victoria. The two day workshop was held at Winda-Mara Aboriginal Corporation in Heywood which was attended by all the language workers from the Community Language Programs and several representatives from local schools and various members of the local community.

After a warm welcome from Ken Saunders we proceeded with a few presentations about VACL and its role in supporting language revival in Victoria and from the Language Workers who showed the work that they had been doing in relation to language in their area. There was also discussion about community protocols in regards to language and control of its use in the wider community. Participants from the local community were encouraged to see the extent of work that has already been undertaken in other areas such as books, CD-ROMS and examples from such places as the KODE School in Morwell of students doing projects on their own language using multimedia software to achieve the desired result. The afternoon saw the workshop take a trip out to Lake Condah cemetery and mission followed by a visit to Tyrendarra, which has recently been declared an Indigenous Protected Area (IPA). Day two was a half day which focused on three main topics; the VCE Subject Language Revival & Reclamation, the role of FATSIL and the important part it plays in advocating language issues to the government and the future of language in the South-West region of Victoria. The region is set to start undertaking a language program in the next few months.

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