Capturing the history of Alkimos through personal stories

The Alkimos Storytelling for Community Building project is seeking both adults and young people to get involved in a series of workshops facilitated by the Centre for Stories during March and April.

The workshops will capture individual stories that will then be shared with the Alkimos community.

City of Wanneroo Mayor Tracey Roberts said that creating a community from the ground-up presented a unique opportunity not only for residents but for historians to capture an accurate record right from its inception.

“The suburb of Alkimos is a fast-growing community with more than 2500 families making it their home since 2013, and this will grow to more than 10000 by 2040,” she said.

“Through the project we want to capture the stories of Alkimos; from the very first residents to people who are currently building homes.

“We want to reflect their life experiences and reasons for moving to the area to build the story of Alkimos.

“We invite residents of Alkimos to participate in this important project to tell their Alkimos story and have it recorded for posterity.”

Lendlease General Manager of the Communities business in Western Australia said that sharing the rich experiences of residents and their stories was part of creating places where people feel they belong.

“Since its inception in 2012, Alkimos Beach has raised the benchmark for greenfield developments in Australia, with an emphasis on the creation of community through early activation, innovation and environmental sustainability and we look forward to hearing the stories of the first residents,” he said. 

Adult participants will work over three sessions with Sisonke Msimang from the Centre for Stories to gain storytelling skills and develop their story for recording. Sisonke’s own stories have been showcased via TED Talks and The Moth.

Adult sessions will run on 28 and 29 March and 4 April from 11.30am-2.30pm and participants need to be available to attend all three.

Nadia King, author of young adult novel Jenna’s Truth will work with young people over three sessions to share their Alkimos stories, explore their ‘voices’ as writers and learn storytelling fundamentals over a variety of formats.

Young people’s sessions are available for only 10 Alkimos residents aged 13- 16.

The sessions will be held on 18, 23 and 26 April and participants need to be available to attend all three.

All sessions will be held at the Alkimos Pop-up Library which is situated at The Gateway Shopping Precinct – Alkimos Beach, Sanderling Drive, Alkimos.

For more information, or to register for attendance, contact the City of Wanneroo Community History Librarian (Sooz Dalgleish) on 9405 5925.

Places are limited.