Far from home, inside a Sydney publishing house, a group of young Tiwi girls are busy brainstorming for a task that not many people will have the chance to do.
With pens, paper and iPads strewn around a large desk, the Tiwi College students from Melville Island, just off the coast of the Northern Territory, have been writing a book that is due to be published just one week from when the girls arrived.
Bella Puruntatameri has come on this trip as a staff member, previously participating in the program three times as a student.
The girls during a brainstorming session with Shelley Ware.
Run by the Indigenous Literacy Foundation in partnership with Australia Post and publisher Hachette Australia, the Create Initiative pairs young Indigenous women with publishers and mentors to share their stories and develop self-confidence.
The week begins with a brainstorming session where the girls decide the characters and setting for the story before breaking up into pairs to write the chapters.
On the final day of the workshop, the book is printed and the girls officially return home as published authors.
This is Ms Puruntatameri’s second trip in her role as a regional program coordinator for the Tiwi Islands and she's helping guide the younger girls.
“It was tough when I first came, I went to Melbourne for my first [workshop] and I was pretty nervous because I was the youngest in the group,” she said.
Aged between 15 and 17, for many of the girls it's their first time travelling out of their communities and the transition can be challenging.
Shelley Ware is an educator and media presenter, she’s also an ambassador for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation and has been mentoring students from Tiwi for years.
“We always see children that start the week off too shy to speak or they can’t look you in the eye and then as you build that relationship with them they become really strong in self-confidence,” she said.
The cover of their book.
“It’s a really good way for us to look at the journey of literacy in the community where we obviously talk about deficit in terms of reading and writing rates but we show the strength of these kids when they come into a room like this where they are writing a book and illustrating it within a week,” he said.
According to the Lowitja Institute, an estimated 40 per cent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults have minimal English literacy, a figure that rises to as high as 70 per cent in many remote areas.
“Sometimes literacy is measured on your ability to get thoughts out of your head and written down on a page but there are roadblocks to that,” Mr Bowen said.
Breaking down those roadblocks includes encouraging the students to use a combination of English and Tiwi words to tell their stories in a way that represents them.
Not only does this help the girls express their stories, Mr Bowen says it also helps young readers relate to the story as a reflection of what their lived experience sounds like.
This year the girls have chosen to tell the stories of two best friends going hunting.
It will be the ninth book to come out of the program with previous editions focusing on poetry to help students express their feelings as well as a three-part series chronicling the story of a young girl who becomes an AFLW star.
Ms Ware says the program is also an important opportunity for the girls to develop work-ready skills.
“Often we see programs for our young men and young boys… but the women and the young girls can really get left behind so this is what’s so great about this, it’s another pathway for them to look into what is possible for them,” she said.
The girls will take printed copies of the finished book home with them before it's published and officially launched at an event in the Tiwi Islands.
The book then may go on to be sold commercially.
“Parents, grandparents, aunties and uncles they’re just so thrilled and everybody wants a copy of the book, they’re giving out autographs, they become real little rockstars overnight,” Ms Ware said.
After years of running the program successfully, Mr Bowen says he hopes to expand its reach to get more young mob involved in storytelling.
