Cherbourg - in Story and in Poetry

I love art, I have since a very young age. It is therapeutic, relaxing, fun, captures moments, a valuable skill, and a way to express myself when I don’t have the words to do so. However, some children aren’t fortunate enough to experience this. Only 319km away, lies one of the most disadvantaged areas in Australia. Cherbourg, formerly Baramba Aboriginal settlement is a rural town in Queensland, home to 1,269 people.

A group of friends and I decided to try to help change this. We all donated new art supplies and culminated almost 2500 individual items. After collection, I catalogued the items and boxed them up to give to Katura Halleday and her mother Kyron, who drove them all the way up to the Cherbourg community. Katura was the recipient of the 2020 Outstanding Leadership Award who founded the ‘8x8 to educate’ social enterprise and I was so fortunate to have met her during the d’Arcy Doyle Art Awards.

With the help of Ration Shed Museum, the building next to where the art classes are held, we hope to bring joy and give children an opportunity to immerse themselves in art like we are so lucky to be able to do every day.

There is still time to enter the 8x8 art award, which 100% of the proceeds go towards providing an education to the children of Developing Nations. Find out more at www.8x8toeducate.com.au

A gift from us to you

We would like to give you a gift

But it’s not the paint, paper or pens

Those things are part of it

But that’s not where it ends

There is magic in every brush stroke

A story in every line

A world in every drawing

That will stand the test of time

You have the power to create anything

Any person, place or thing

You can be transported into space

Or transformed into a king

So go create your masterpieces

There is so much to do

We hope you have lots of fun

Here’s a gift from us to you