Cairns students will have direct access to local Indigenous culture through a ground breaking educational resource developed and delivered by the Yidinji Aboriginal People.

A unique collaboration between MINJIL Yidinji Cultural Services and Cairns Museum has produced a resource kit rich with local knowledge and perspectives that meets both curriculum and cultural requirements.

The home-grown initiative is believed to be a first for Australia. The new kits, available to teachers, have been curated by MINJIL, an Indigenous cultural group founded in Cairns.

In the Yidinji language, MINJIL means “spark from a fire that shoots up into the night sky”.

The resource kits are designed to do just that: illuminate the culture, crafts, language, traditions, history and values of local Indigenous people.

The kits can be hired as a standalone resource but can also be linked in with a school visit or workshop with MINJIL Yidinji Cultural Services, at an additional cost.

The production of the kits was supported by The John Villiers Trust.

Suzanne Gibson, manager of Cairns Museum, said the two organisations had worked closely together to prepare the kits, which support educators teaching indigenous histories and culture at a local level.

They are designed for Prep through to Year 4 students and include hands on and audio visual resources. They are part of the HASS (Humanities and Social Sciences) learning area.

The kits are an enrichment of Cairns Museum’s innovative Museum in Trunk program, where items from the museum are curated and packed up for DIY presentations at schools.