Wollongong Heritage and Stories

Rather than have a museum building, the people of ItSoWel (Italian Social Welfare Organisation of Wollongong) created a virtual museum of the local Italian community, with funding support from the Australian Government.  The aim of the ItSoWel virtual museum is to collect, protect and share the history and heritage of the Italian community in the Illawarra.  

The project received strong backing from the community and many stories have been collected.  Numerous stories share common traits, from their journey to Australia, to their work life – such as EPT, Transfield and Steelworks.  The issue of identity  is one of the most interesting aspects of the virtual museum.  Migration makes people face the conflict between the identity of the country of origin and the identity of the country they migrated to.  The result of the combination of those two identities is widely different and the project explores the different shades of it.

The virtual museum includes digitised journals, photos, documents, historic newspapers and articles.