In April 2025, First Nations Engagement celebrated the successful delivery of the NFSA & FNMA Preparing for Digitisation Training.

In collaboration with Collection Digitisation, Curatorial and Accessioning, Conservation, and Collection Management, the team delivered a total of nine workshops across three days, for 26 participants from fifteen First Nations remote and regional media organisations.

The group took a visit to AIATSIS as part of the partnership with First Nations Media Association in delivering this training.

First Nations Media Australia staff attend Archive Project training at the NFSA in April 2025.

Feedback shared in our closing session included that the group loved seeing the passion from staff at the NFSA and were excited at the opportunity to see breadth of work teams and how the technology works. All felt they developed a solid understanding for the process to digitise their analogue items. A main takeaway was the importance of their own knowledge of the items within their collections, and how to best prioritise items for digitisation.

Standing out for all was the NFSA’s commitment to a First Nations first approach and seeing this in-action with a First Nations Engagement team with identified positions, approach to working collaboratively throughout all levels of the NFSA. The 3-day workshop also encouraged discussion around career pathways. An openness of sharing, seeing firsthand the care NFSA takes with their collection built a lot of trust in the NFSA. All left the training feeling empowered and inspired that First Nations items would be taken care of here at the NFSA.