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PHAI has now produced ten WA Indigenous Storybooks focused on regional stories, two Storybooks that showcase stories related to a specific disease and one that demonstrates the effectiveness of an organisation.
The Storybooks are an advocacy strategy to combat the negative media around Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. PHAI undertook two media studies that the identified the percentage of negative and positive stories relating to health, in Australia’s mainstream media. The results from the initial study showed that 74% of the coverage of Australian Indigenous related articles were negative, 15% were positive, and 11% were neutral[1]. The most common negative subject descriptors related to alcohol, child abuse, petrol sniffing, violence, suicide, deaths in custody, and crime. The second study, five years later, showed somewhat better results with 60% of articles being negative, 25% being positive, and 15% being neutral.
[1] Stoneham M, Goodman J & Daube M (2014)
To overcome this negative media, the Storybook was created.
The books showcase the many positive community-based projects occurring in rural and remote Aboriginal communities and celebrating people who are contributing to the social, economic, health and environmental outcomes for their people.
PHAI believes story telling is a creative avenue to disseminate information to many people in a user friendly and non-threatening way. In this project, Aboriginal practitioner’s stories are shaped by their personal history, biography, gender, social
class, location and those of the people in the setting or story. These stories will hopefully encourage change in how public health projects are planned, delivered, disseminated, and reported. Telling a story from a strength’s perspective means reversing the common narratives, recognises and values the capabilities of Aboriginal peoples, and helps to capture Aboriginal ways of knowing and being.

Read more about the storybooks
The two disease-based Storybooks focus on trachoma and otitis media. Both Storybooks showcase a selection of the many successful community-led and based health promotion programs and initiatives occurring within remote Aboriginal communities across Western Australia and Queensland. You can access these Storybooks here.
Project History
This video showcases the history of the West Australian Indigenous Storybook project which was funded by Healthway and produced by us.
The WA Indigenous Storybook project is a publication which shares and celebrates positive stories, programs and projects about Aboriginal people in WA.
If your organisation is interested in having a Storybook produced that showcases your work or if you know of positive stories in your region, get in contact with us.
We would like to acknowledge and thank our key advocacy partners






