Projects

AAR projects are diverse. Our current projects focus on language education and increasingly on publishing books and other resources that challenge and inspire.
In 2007 our publishing list is two works: Czenya Cavouras's Rainbow Bird, a children's picture book; and Lily Neville's Adnyamathanha Ngawarla, an Aboriginal language resource. We are interested in manuscripts that are exceptional as works of art or scholarship, and have a social justice aspect.
All AAR projects are achieved through volunteers’ time and energy and donated funds, or funds raised from publications. If you can donate to these projects, please contact us. Donation details here.

• Adnyamathanha Ngawarla Yarramalka
  In 2007 we established an Aboriginal language and culture course, Adnyamathanha Ngawarla Yarramalka. This is our major project through 2007 and beyond. It is inevitable that our work on racism and refugees has led us to begin to devise projects for the greater inclusion of Aboriginal people and culture in Australia's sense of self, as the prejudice experienced by Aboriginal people is the core racism in Australia, and the source and symptom of much harm - to Aboriginal people primarily, but also to us all. We would like to be part of a push for proper acknowledgment of Australian languages in Australia. Adnyamathanha Ngawarla Yarramalka is a project devised both for (and by) the Adnyamathanha community, and for the diverse Australian community. Our current teachers are Uncle Buck McKenzie (Adults class) and Aunty Gloria Sumner (children's class). Have a look at the website, donated by David Mutton here for more information
  
  
• Adnyamathanha Ngawarla publishing project 2007
  Aunty Lily Neville has written and illustrated an unusual and inspiring language primer book, Adnyamathanha Ngawarla, which we will be publishing late 2007. More on this soon. To view a sample go here. Design donated by Deborah Baldassi of Artberries.
  
  
• Rainbow Bird Project 2006-2007
  Rainbow Bird is a moving children's picture book written and illustrated by Czenya Cavouras, who is now in high school. It was published on the anniversary of the Tampa, 26 August 2007, and launched by J M Coetzee in Adelaide on 18th October 2007. To read his launch speech go here. Everyone who has had anything to do with refugees and asylum seekers will want to read this book. It is quietly harrowing, has a unique author voice, and is ultimately inspiring and uplifting. The Rainbow Bird project marks a new direction for us, for this will be our first AAR published book, printed from the generosity of the young authors in the anthology projects, who donated all their royalties to AAR, and promoted and distributed by Wakefield Press. Deborah Baldassi of Artberries donated her skills as designer, and Tingleman Media did the printing at cost. Order online here
  
  
• Arabic Language for Children 2006 and ongoing
  Ozarabic is a language program for primary school aged children, hosted by Gilles Street Primary School in Adelaide. The fees we charge parents pay the teacher. Our current teacher is Hanaa Zebian, a native speaker from Lebanon. For more information go to the Ozarabic website here.
  
  
• Schools Writing Competition 2006
  Due to unforeseen circumstances we were unable to run this competition in 2006. As everything we do is achieved through donated time, team members from time to time do find themselves unable. We hope to in the future.
  
  
• Anthology No Place Like Home
  No Place Like Home: Australian Stories by Young Writers aged 8 to 21 Years, published by Wakefield Press in late 2005 has been a great success and has been widely reviewed.
  Our hope as editors is that this striking collection of refugee, Indigenous, settler and migrant Australian stories will inspire people and provoke them to a different kind of nation love. These stories transform wounds and terror and suggest what we could become. As one young author puts it: "This is my retelling of a great man who lost everything to a silly colour believing. ItÕs up to the children of today to stop this, so please DON'T let it happen again."
  To order a copy go to any good bookshop, or here. The stunning cover art is from Abbas Mehran, a South Australian artist.
  
  
• 2004 Young Australians Parliamentary Forum
  Funded by a grant from the Foundation for Young Australians, supported by Margaret Reynolds of UNAA and four parliamentarians. Held 6th October 2004 in the Main Committee room Parliament House, Canberra. This was the major event for the winners of There is No Place Like Home. They were flown to Canberra to read their stories at the event. Speeches were from Senator Andrew Bartlett, Senator Kerry Nettle, Annette Ellis MP for Dr Carmen Lawrence MP, Merlin Luck for Senator Marise Payne, and Hai-Van Nguyen, winner in 2002. Actors for Refugees MCs were Kate Atkinson, Rupert Reid and Georgina Naidu, and Merlin Luck for the Prize presentation event.
  
  
• 2004 There is No Place Like Home Winning Stories Magazine
  Printed primarily to celebrate and commemorate the 2004 competition and sold also as a fundraiser for AAR. Printing part funded by Foundation for Young Australians Grant and otherwise by AAR funds from 2002 sales.
  Cover image created especially for this project by Judy Horacek
  We donated copies to the School Libraries Association Conference in April in Canberra, the Now We The People Conference in July 2005 in Melbourne.
  Over 600 complimentary copies distributed to: media; audience at the Young Australians Parliamentary Forum; winners; sponsors; and all sitting federal politicians, state premiers and education and social justice ministers; some librarians.
  Several schools have ordered full classroom sets.
  Other bulk orders sent to Chilout; International PEN; NSW Dept of Ed; AEU (SA)
  Order here
  
  
• 2004 "There is No Place Like Home" Schools Competition
  On the theme There is No Place Like Home, school children and young writers to age 20 were encouraged to find and interview someone who was driven or torn from their home and forced to begin a new life and make a new home among strangers. They were invited to find and tell the stories of refugee or Indigenous Australians, displaced peoples from recent times or from the distant past. The competition encouraged the discovery of the meaning and experience of exile or forced dispossession, and how the young writers' peers or elders survived and rebuilt their lives.
  $10,000 in prizemoneys was donated by many sponsors. All time, admin and skills donated.
  14 winners were selected by judges Geraldine Brooks, Nicholas Jose and Tony Birch. (major winning story had three authors). 63 young writers highly commended. Winning stories published in There is No Place Like Home Winning Stories Magazine and presented at the Young Australians' Parliamentary Forum.
  
  
• 2003-4 Billboards
  Our 'Sisters Daughters Australians' billboards were launched with two supersites in Melbourne and one in Sydney in August 2004, followed by a supersites in Sydney in September, October and November. A 36,000 print-run of postcards by Avant Card went nationwide in September and October 2004. The Australian Education Union South Australia and the Student Research Council Sydney University printed more than 10,000 posters. A Cinema Slide was shown in the Nova Carlton through November and December in 2004. We will aim to get the billboards up in Adelaide and Perth if possible in 2005. Posters and postcards are available. Email us This project has been made possible by all our sponsors and by the many organizations and private individuals who gave their money, time and enthusiasm. A Major Sponsor is Avant Card
  The supersite billboards went up again in September 2005. We were lucky enough to obtain sites in Melbourne at Hopkins Street, Footscray and Western Ring Rd, Keilor; and in Sydney at Victoria Rd, Rozelle. We have now used up all donated funds for this project, but would welcome more: the timing for the message and spirit of these images is great. Sad to note that they have only become more relevant since they were last in the skies. So if you would like to see them go up again, please consider helping us to make it happen. (We can't choose our locations, though - we take what is offered. We pay for installation only.) The skins are reusable, and so are a major resource.
  
  
• 2003-4 Dark Dreams: Australian Refugee Stories by Young Writers Aged 11-20 Years.
  A major anthology edited by AAR team Heather Millar, Sonja Dechian and Eva Sallis, published by Wakefield Press in 2004. This anthology showcases 37 stories from the young entrants in the 2002 competition, and is an Australian bestseller. All editors' time donated. All royalties donated by authors and editors to AAR projects. This anthology has been exceptionally successful .
  Launched in Adelaide, Sydney, Lismore and Melbourne. Featured in talks in Perth Writers' Festival (February) Melbourne Writers' Festival (August), Bennelong Writers' Festival (September). Extensive media including: 18 reviews, 1 feature, 4 articles, 4 interviews, 3 stories reprinted. Dark Dreams sold out its first print run and was reprinted five months after publication. See website dedicated to the book here.
  
  
• 2003 TPV University Scholarship
  A winner from the AIR! competition was a TPV holder. We raised sufficient funds to pay for his expenses in his first year of university in 2003, and hope to raise what it takes to help him complete his degree. He deferred his first term in 2004 while he waited for the outcome of his application for a permanent Visa, which he finally received in October 2004. We will be supporting his studies again in 2005
  
  
• 2002 Exploring conditions in Afghanistan for ourselves.
  Mariana Hardwick visited Afghanistan in February and March, in the company of Dr Nouria Salehi. View her report on this trip here.
  
  
• 2002 Australia IS Refugees! schools competition
  In 2002 school children Australia-wide explored the lives and experiences of refugees as a step towards healing the cultural rift created by the asylum seeker debate. The "Australia IS Refugees!" competitions were offered to year 6 and 7 students, and year 10, 11 and 12 students. Judges were Helen Garner, Tom Shapcott, Phillip Adams, Meme McDonald and Libby Gleeson. 37 of the stories are published in the major anthology Dark Dreams: Australian Refugee Stories (Wakefield Press 2004).
  
  
  
• 2001 'Faces in the Crowd' TV Commercial went to air on Human Rights Day, 10th December 2001, and had a season in the Mercury Cinema in Adelaide in September 2002. Australia's first people power commercial. . A VHS copy is available for $15 donation to AAR projects. View the TVC here.
  
  
  

If you have the skills and want to be part of a team, whether administrative, creative or industry experience, contact us.