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Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants Oral History Project

As the Prime Minister announced in his Apology on 16 November 2009, the National Library has been conducting an oral history project to record the lives and experiences of Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants. Interviews are being conducted across Australia, will be preserved in the National Library and made publicly available, subject to any access conditions imposed by interviewees.

An oral history project was recommended in two Senate Community Affairs References Committee reports Lost Innocents: Righting the Record - Report on Child Migration (August 2001) and Forgotten Australians - A report on Australians who experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children (August 2004). This oral history project has received funding from the Commonwealth Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs.

Since the Apology, there has been widespread interest in this project. The Library received about 200 formal expressions of interest in being interviewed from across Australia and many more suggestions about people who had stories to share. With many thousands of people affected by the experiences of being in care, the Library has selected people to interview to show the lifelong impact of these experiences on those who were themselves in care, their siblings and family members. The project also interviewed a selection of advocates, and associated professionals including welfare officers, employees of institutions and administrators. Interviewees have come from all walks of life, have had a wide range of work and life experiences and have been chosen to show the large variety of impacts of care experiences from the 1920’s onwards across Australia. The interviews record experiences in over 140 institutions across Australia run by state governments, churches, non-government organizations as well as in foster homes.

This oral history project will conclude in November 2012.

Is the Library collecting other materials?

The Library is seeking to collect other materials about the experiences of Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants including ephemera, self-published autobiographies, websites and manuscripts. The Library has made a list of a significant number of publications which it does not hold and would like to collect, catalogue and make available. If you have published a book about your experiences you can check the National Library Catalogue to see if the Library holds a copy. There is information about the Legal Deposit scheme and where to send a copy of your book.

Further information

For further information on the Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants oral history project, please feel free to contact:

Project Team
Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants Oral History project
Phone: 1800 204 290
Email: fafcm@nla.gov.au

To make an enquiry about this project.