Plan your own NAIDOC Week activity

Get involved in NAIDOC Week.

Celebrations take place every year across Australia and everyone is encouraged to join in. It's easy to plan and hold an event or activity during NAIDOC Week in your community.

Focus your events and activities on celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. Whether your activity is big or small, think about how you can get your friends, neighbourhood and community involved. Each community is different, so think of an activity that is meaningful and appropriate to your community.

Use your imagination, work together and tell people about it!

Here are some ideas to get you started.

Events and activities for schools

1. Hold a flag raising ceremony of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags.
2. Create Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags (crepe paper or calico).
3. Learn to play Indigenous Traditional Games.
4. Read dreamtime stories.
5. Start your own Indigenous Hall of Fame featuring any local role models and achievers.
6. Make your own Aboriginal art or colour in Indigenous drawings.
7. Hold an art competition or writing competition based around the important issues of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
8. Organise a clothesline project where people write or draw messages about NAIDOC Week on t-shirts and display them in a prominent place.
9. Hire or buy a badge-making machine and make up badges using 'NAIDOC Week' or make up your own NAIDOC Week message.
10. Write and perform a play about NAIDOC Week and invite your local community to come along and see it.

Events and activities for businesses and community groups

1. Display NAIDOC Week posters in your office, shop or meeting place.
2. Stage a NAIDOC Week display in the local library or shopping centre showcasing the achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
3. Invite local Indigenous Elders to speak at a breakfast, morning tea, lunch or sausage sizzle.
4. Organise a stall at your local markets promoting NAIDOC Week and print and give away stickers NAIDOC Week stickers.
5. Organise local craft groups to make a quilt or other artwork with messages about NAIDOC Week.
6. Invite Indigenous artist to paint a wall or display Indigenous artefacts.
7. Sponsor a children's essay competition through your local school. Display the essays in your local library or community centre.
8. Hold a film night featuring Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander films or documentaries.
9. Organise a banner-making workshop. Make a banner for NAIDOC Week and have it erected over the main street of your town/city.
10. Present a certificate of appreciation for Indigenous people who have contributed to building a better understanding and relationship between the community and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Invite the mayor or other local identity to make the presentation.

Events and activities for friends and family

1. Listen to Indigenous music or radio stations and look around Indigenous websites.
2. Study a famous Indigenous Australian.
3. Find out about the Traditional people from your area.
4. Learn the meanings of local or national Aboriginal place names.
5. Visit a local gallery that displays Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts and crafts.
6. Visit local Indigenous sites of significance or interest.
7. Make your own Indigenous Trivia Quiz and test your friends.
8. Cook up some bush tucker and invite friends and family around to share.
9. Plant a native Australian plant.
10. Design t–shirts displaying the importance of issues to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.