Bipartisan support for Indigenous scholarships
The statistics alone for the Shalom Gamarada Indigenous Residential Scholarship Program are worth celebrating - 41 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander graduates since 2009, including 23 doctors.
THE statistics alone for the Shalom Gamarada Indigenous Residential Scholarship Program are worth celebrating – 41 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander graduates since 2009, including 23 doctors.
But an appreciation for this program’s importance was taken to another level at a special reception at NSW Parliament House on August 7 when more than 150 guests heard deeply inspiring, life-changing stories from several current and former scholarship recipients.
And before the night concluded – in the presence of the program’s patron Dame Marie Bashir – NSW health minister Brad Hazzard announced Western NSW Local Health District would fund an additional scholarship and a follow-up 12-month medical internship, and shadow health minister Walt Secord promised an elected NSW Labor government would provide $480,000 over five years to fund six more scholarships.
Hearts melted when scholarship-holder and first year arts/law student at UNSW Tahlia McKee – a young Wiradjuri/Mani Mani woman who grew up in Campbelltown – told program donors in the audience “you have ensured that my life has taken a radically different course and I can’t thank you enough”.
“Nobody in my family had ever gone past year 10, but suddenly a university education seemed possible – I could be someone for my younger sisters, and motivate them to pursue a degree.”
One of the program’s first medical graduates, Dr Josef McDonald – an Awabakal man who works at Newcastle Hospital – said he benefitted particularly from the safe learning environment Shalom College provides, and gaining the confidence to succeed from good role models – “people who back you”.
“Professor Peter Gonski was one of my tutors, and his brother David Gonski gave me my degree at the UNSW graduation ceremony when he was Chancellor – and both are here tonight.
“I’ve been blessed twice – firstly with an education and secondly by being able now to help my community. Investment in this program is so worthwhile, and there is so much untapped potential.”
Hazzard congratulated the program and its graduates, describing them as “the emissaries for greater things – to send a message to other young indigenous Australians that you can do this too”.
Secord reflected on his own childhood, growing up in a First Nation settlement in southern Canada as a young bi-cultural man.
“So I know first-hand the challenges these students face when they move away from their communities and attend university,” he said.
“A simple calculation from Department of Health data shows that Shalom Gamarada has helped nearly 10 per cent of all of Australia’s 270 doctors that identify as indigenous – a remarkable achievement.”
To find out more, visit www.shalomgamarada.org.
SHANE DESIATNIK
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