School Visits in the Pilbara – Western Australia

 

I have recently returned from a trip to the Pilbara region of Western Australia with colleague and children’s illustrator, Marjory Gardner, a veteran of School Visits into remote schools and communities.

Our trip was organised by the Children’s Charity Network (CCN) which runs the annual Young Australian Art and Writer’s Awards which nurture literacy and creativity in students from Prep to Year 12.

We delivered around 23 presentations/workshops to 6 schools over 9 days and drove 2,400 kilometres over 6 of those days. Our latest skill is the ability to overtake road-trains with four dog trailers (the correct name for the trailers themselves) with a certain level of confidence. We also managed to talk for all of those 2,400 kilometres as well as deliver the presentations without either of us losing our voices! Some sort of miracle I think.

The visits themselves were rewarding and touched our hearts and the students and teachers seemed delighted with our presentations and workshops. The resources and learning opportunities available in these remote areas is of a high standard but students don’t very often meet creators, so it was a wonderful experience for us as well.

So here are some photos to share.