Indigenous Cultural Heritage Fund
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Funds the preservation and digitization of Aboriginal oral history and cultural artifacts at risk of being lost.
Why this matters in Australia
Hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages were spoken before colonization, and only a small number are still learned by children as a first language. Much of what survives of the rest exists in recordings: interviews, songs and stories captured on wax cylinders, reel-to-reel tape, cassettes and film by linguists, anthropologists and community members through the twentieth century.
These formats are failing. Magnetic tape degrades, the machines needed to play it are disappearing, and film stock shrinks and decays. Archivists worldwide have warned that audiovisual material on obsolete carriers must be digitized within a limited window or be lost. For families and communities, a recording may be the only trace of a grandparent's voice, a song, or knowledge needed for language revival and native title claims. Stolen Generations survivors and their descendants also rely on archived records and photographs to trace family links that government policies deliberately broke.
What your gift pays for
- Digitization of fragile audio tape, film and photographs before the original carriers decay
- Cataloging and descriptive work so communities can find recordings of their own people and places
- Returning digitized copies of recordings and images to the communities they came from
- Specialist preservation equipment and storage for originals that cannot be replaced
Organization
AIATSIS · Australia
Government body
Founded 1964 · Headquarters: Canberra
Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, a statutory authority that preserves and digitises Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collections including oral histories.
How they work: AIATSIS manages its collection on the principle that Indigenous people should control their own heritage. Items carry access conditions that respect cultural restrictions, such as limits on sacred or gender-restricted material, and the Institute's Return of Material to Indigenous Communities program sends digitized copies back to the families and communities they came from. Its family history service helps people, including members of the Stolen Generations, trace relatives through the collection, and it funds and publishes community-led research.
Track record: Holds an archive of 40,000 hours of mostly unique, unpublished audio, 700,000 photographs and 5,000 video titles relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
✓ Verified by our team on 26 October 2024
Giving in Australia
Distance from services links three of the four Australian causes. Young people in regional and rural areas face long public mental health waits, which headspace helps bridge with free or low-cost support, and elderly residents in remote areas without a local care facility receive mobile aged care through Silverchain. Adults who left school early can take free or low-cost classes in literacy, numeracy and digital skills. The fourth cause, with AIATSIS, preserves and digitizes Aboriginal oral history and cultural artifacts at risk of being lost.
4 causes are listed in Australia, each with its own verified organization. $285,985 has been distributed to causes in Australia since 2021.
Our guide to giving in Australia · all 4 causes
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How your gift reaches this cause
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