Anzac Stories: Interactive Digital History for Kiwi Kids to Explore Anzac Heroes

A new digital initiative for children to explore Anzac histories and stories from the battlefront to the homefront has launched today, says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden.

Anzac Stories is an online visual storytelling experience highlighting heroes and heroines from past New Zealand conflicts, including nurses, soldiers, animals, and people at home, says Ms van Velden.

Anzac Stories has been created by Archives New Zealand and the National Library from their national collections.

Children can navigate the website anywhere, whether at home with their families, or at school with their classmates. It makes learning about our past engaging with photographs from archival collections, maps, timelines, and minigames to test their knowledge.

I asked Archives and the National Library to undertake this project to encourage Kiwi children to be excited to learn about an important part of our nation’s history, and give them access to the rich collections of Archives New Zealand and the National Library.

Many of our fascinating national records have been digitised, and I want Kiwis to see the benefit from that work and be able to interact with it. This fully online resource gives young people access to historically accurate archival information in a way that appeals to them.

Students provided guidance to help shape this new service. I want to give a special thank you to the students from Belmont School in Lower Hutt and Adventure School in Porirua whose feedback helped the team understand what ideas resonated most.

I encourage children, families and the education sector to make use of this new resource.