We're delivering the goods for First Nations literacy

Video: The red Australia Post sign on a grey building

Video: The front cover of a children’s book with the front cover showing an illustration of a pig that is stuck under a truck. The title of the book is Molli bin git stak.

Video: Paul Graham, Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director, Australia Post talking while standing outside beside post boxes.

Audio: Paul Graham: Today we're announcing a really important event, the 500 thousandth book that we're delivering as part of our relationship with Indigenous Literary Foundation. We've been in partnership with them since 2020.

Video: Two men inside a post office, holding a children’s book entitled Moli bin git stak.

Video: Paul Graham talking while standing outside beside some post boxes.

Audio: Paul Graham: Well, our role given that we are in every Community in the country

Video: Two men inside a post office talking and placing the children’s book in a postal satchel. The satchel is addressed to Cunnamulla in Queensland.

Audio: Paul Graham: the most geographically dispersed business that there is a natural fit for us to offer our distribution services to be able to get the books

Video: Paul Graham talking while standing outside beside post boxes.

Audio: Paul Graham: put them into our network and make sure they get to these Communities.

Video: Two men talking while standing inside the post office.

Video: Ben Bowen, Chief Executive Officer, Indigenous Literacy Foundation talking whilst standing outside next to post boxes.

Audio: The ILF was created about getting some books out into the Community. Now they hit a milestone of 500,000 books out there is incredible.

Video: Paul Graham and Ben Bowen walking out of the post office and hand the satchel to a female postal worker in an Australia Post uniform. She is standing next to an Australia Post van.

Audio: Ben Bowen: The book supply programme that ILF does is one of our core programmes.

Video: Children in school uniforms sitting outside on the grass reading books.

Audio: Ben Bowen: It's the primary programme for the function of our organisation. It gets out about 136,000 books every year to over 427 Communities.

Video: Paul Graham talking while standing outside beside some post boxes.

Audio: Paul Graham: So we'll be delivering half a million books all the way

Video: Female postal worker placing the satchel into an Australia Post van with NSW number plates. The van is driven away down a street.

Audio: Paul Graham: to Cunnamulla via Toowoomba DC and via Charleville. It shows the great distance that these books get to go, into the hands of kids, to teach them how to read and also sharing their own stories, which is fantastic.

Video: the postal van is travelling through a country landscape.

Video: aerial view of rooftops including a large industrial building

Video: Alf Foster, Delivery Manager, Australia Post standing inside an Australia Post delivery centre talking

Audio: Alf Foster: Today marks an important milestone for Australia Post. With the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, we'll be delivering the 500,000th book to our First Nations people at Cunnamulla.

Video: Alf collects the satchel from the back of a postal van and carries it across the facility.

Video: A postal van departs from the Australia Post Toowoomba Business Hub and travels on country road.

Video: Tammy Hickey, Cunnamulla Library Services talks while sitting on a stool in a library. She is wearing a uniform and there are bookshelves in the background

Audio: Cunnamulla Library is beside itself with excitement. The whole community is very, very excited.

Video: Aerial view flying into the town of Cunnamulla over a big colourful Cunnamulla sign and over the top of the roof of the Cunnamulla Post Office.

Video: Tammy Hickey walks into the Post Office with a collection card and hands it to the post office worker behind the counter.

Audio: Tammy Hickey: Without Australia Post we wouldn't be able to get the books here, of course,

Video: Tammy Hickey: talks while sitting on a stool in the library

Audio: Tammy Hickey: And it is a long way to Cunnamulla.

Video: The postal worker uses a scanning device to scan the satchel and passes it to Tammy Hickey.

Audio: Tammy Hickey: So we're very, very grateful to Australia Posts. And again, without the wonderful Indigenous Literacy Foundation, a lot of children wouldn't have books in homes.

Video: Children and a teacher sitting outside on the ground surrounded by grass. The children are listening whilst the teacher reads them the book entitled Moli bin git stak.

Audio: Tammy Hickey: We wouldn't be able to give books out for free.

Video: Several children outside sitting on a mat which is on green grass next to a river. Five of the children are holding up signs with the numeral 0. Another child runs into the group from the left. He is holding the numeral 5.

Video: Large black letters on a glass door read, "Indigenous Literacy Foundation". A woman's blue shirt is emblazoned "Reading Opens Doors". She passes huge bookcases in the shape of the word 'Read'. Each letter contains books of a different colour. Onscreen text reads, "Australia Post proudly supports the Indigenous Literacy Program's Create program." A dark-haired man is interviewed in front of book shelves. Text: Ben Bowen, Chief Executive Officer, Indigenous Literacy Foundation." Indigenous teens and adults wearing blue ILF shirts and hoodies work around a large table that's covered with books and documents. The meeting room looks out on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Audio: Ben: Create program's one of the premier programs. It's a really unique program for us and we bring young people or community elders into a space in Sydney or Melbourne with a big publisher. It's sometimes that one and only chance those kids will ever be in a big city like this and they get to do everything. All that experience, when they take it back to community, then grows the conversations about what else is out there for them.

Video: The participants work on laptops, have discussions, and draw illustrations. A woman wears her dark hair in a bun. Text: "Tictac Moore, Programs Manager, Indigenous Literacy Foundation." The covers of books in English and Language feature illustrations of Indigenous teens playing sports. Tictac holds a book titled 'Tiwi Girl Hunters'. The yellow cover shows two teens holding a three-pronged spear. Sea animals swim around them. Tictac leafs through the book, showing the illustrations and a long list titled 'Authors and Illustrators of Tiwi College'.

Audio: Tictac: It's a one-week intensive book-writing workshop. So it's five days to write, illustrate and publish a book. What's great about the process of Create is it's written exactly the way that they speak. 'Tiwi Girl Hunters' - this is the book that was done last year. Two besties, Tiwi girls, obviously, and they go hunting, and it's just about them and their lives. And the great thing about these stories are there's other girls in other remote communities who would be doing the exact same thing.

Video: Ben takes a book called 'This Book Thinks Ya Deadly' from a shelf. Some of the letters in the title feature portraits of famous Indigenous people.

Audio: Ben: Growing up in a community, you know everyone. You know all the stories, you know your country. Then suddenly a book pops up with a story from somewhere else, from someone else, who's telling a story that's familiar to you but elements aren't. Suddenly, you go from here to that radius has grown. That's the piece we're looking at. It's showing these kids that they've got a voice, they can talk to other kids in the communities around Australia and their stories are just as valid everywhere else. And they know to get their chance to do it, they have to commit to school, they've got to be there till Year 12, they've got to finish Year 12, they've got to be doing all the right things to have their chance to tell their story.

Video: About 20 teens and adults sit facing a podium on a small stage. Behind the podium are banners for ILF and Australia Post. Tictac shows them an illustration in 'Tiwi Girl Hunters'. Participants write in copies of the book.

Audio: Tictac: I would find that the weeks after the trip, they're just different. They can see in themselves the work that they've done and what they've created and they've got something to be proud of. This book, it's not ours, it's not ILF's, and it's not really the publisher's book, it's the kids' book. So it's everything that they want - from the story, the characters, the spelling, how much language, the colour of the cover, how they want to write their name as the authors, it's all theirs.

Video: The participants gather for a group photo. Many hold copies of the book. The Australia Post logo appears on a red screen above the words "Proudly supporting the Indigenous Literacy Foundation's Create program." The text fades. The white and blue ILF logo fills the right half of the screen, with the Australia Post logo on the left.