CMTO delivered a four-day storytelling, radio and podcasting workshop with Spirit Bourke Program, an initiative all about passing on skills to young people and connecting them with their culture.
The workshops were held in Bourke from 6th-9th of March and led by storyteller and podcaster Boe Spearim for the students at Bourke High School with the support of 2WEB Outback Radio.
Students spent time learning about creative ways to tell stories, and were taught the history of their elders as well as skills to continue storytelling traditions.
On the last day students were tasked with creating their own podcast.
Our trainer, Boe, got the students to think of stories that they felt would be important to share.
“After our first activity, the young mob knew what they wanted to do. They wanted to tell their story. They wanted to tell their old people’s stories. The young sister girl, she wanted to talk about the black deaths in custody, which I thought was amazing. One sister girl wanted to help fight to revive her language and hopefully go and visit where her mob in central Queensland. One young fella wants to be a firefighter, so he can help his community out more. You know, it’s programs like this that bring out what they want, what they want to do.”
- Boe Spearim, Storyteller, podcaster and CMTO trainer
Irene Ulman, from SPIRIT Bourke, and our trainer Boe worked closely with Bruce Turnbull Jr, the Aboriginal Education Officer at Bourke High School, who was inspired by the workshop.
“With the equipment provided by CMTO we’re going to start something at school each week where we're going to record staff and students what they actually do this week, you know, get a bit of an update and attach it as an audio file to our newsletters, because it's all about accessibility. And if you haven't got the greatest of literacy skills, or you've got issues with vision, at least with an audio file, that's accessible to everyone.
It'll be driven by the kids, for the kids and implement something as a continuum and add to that vision of podcasting and doing business further with 2WEB."
- Bruce Turnbull Jr, Bourke High School Aboriginal Education Officer
The students were really motivated and accomplished a lot over the few days of the workshop. A couple of the students who were part of the workshops have now moved onto further radio training.
We’re pleased with the outcomes of this program. Students were highly engaged and thanks to their dedication the training will have lasting positive impacts in the community at Bourke High School. We’re grateful to Boe for being a fantastic trainer and role model for the kids and also to Irene Ulman for working with us to deliver this really successful training.
“We can't continue to not tell our stories. There's always that fear that we're going to lose our old people before we get those stories.
Stories are created every single day. Yesterday was a story. Tomorrow is going to be another story. So that, you know, a week from now, these stories collectively tell everything about what a great community Bourke is.
I think kids leading the charge is our future.”
- Bruce Turnbull Jr, Bourke High School Aboriginal Education Officer
