Lavender hires indigenous students to service Jawrun client
Lavender has hired indigenous students to work on a project to create a website for client Jawrun, which used to be known as Indigenous Enterprise Partnerships.
The announcement:
Lavender has employed young indigenous students, interested in design and advertising, to help create a website for their client Jawun, formerly known as Indigenous Enterprise Partnerships (IEP). Jawun believe in improving the lives of people in indigenous communities via skills exchanges with Australian businesses. So, when responding to their website brief, Lavender decided to create their own indigenous
partnership. Three indigenous students worked with the agency over a period of three weeks. The students were thrown in the deep end of agency life, working as part of a creative team to develop the website concept.They also had to balance their university and work commitments in addition to the project. In the process of mentoring the students and nurturing their ideas the agency learnt a great deal about indigenous culture. In return the students learnt valuable skills that will hopefully assist them as they move from university to work life.
“Friendship never ends, it goes on forever and so the partnerships that we’ve made with the team, we’ll have that for the rest of our lives, which is ultimately the meaning of Jawun.” Warren Roberts, indigenous student, University of NSW.
“We were fortunate to !nd three students who were really enthusiastic about the project and were generous in sharing stories about their own heritage to ensure we built an authentic web experience. One that would really connect with the communities and reflect what is most important to them.” Chiquita King, Business Director.
The website launch was part of a broader rebrand with IEP changing their name to Jawun, which means friend. So in addition to acting as a digital shopfront for the organisation, the new website was created to become a meeting place for friends (partners). The site leverages the indigenous symbol for camp fires which are traditional meeting places where communities meet, talk and share stories. To ensure we
depicted the camp!res authentically indigenous artists Ivy Minniecon and Cassandra Cairns painted the entire site as a single canvas.To celebrate the launch of the site and the name change, key agency staff including Will Lavender flew the students to Djarragun College in Cape York (a Jawun partner) to present the project to the community.
The entire project from beginning to end was an amazing success. In our experience, the commitment to Jawun has been well worth the investment.
