More than a dozen students from across the Goulburn Valley will find it a little easier to pursue their dreams of further education this year thanks to scholarships granted through the Greater Shepparton Foundation.
The foundation says $67,000 has been granted to 15 students through the 2023 Lift Off Education Scholarship program.
Rowan Farren, Jai-Dee Riseley, Rachael-Lee White, Jemima Dali Ndisa, Honey Makiakama, Noah Sullivan, Jackson Bray, Sophie McLean, Zali Cornell, Lachlan Wright, Olivia-Grace Cartwright, Ella-Rei Dunlop, Harrison Shortis, Jared Pitolau and Angelina Mason, who all completed their secondary schooling at various schools across the Goulburn Valley, will receive scholarships ranging from one to three years.
Foundation executive officer Amanda McCulloch said the generosity of local donors in the region had meant a decade of helping students pursue their dreams.
“In that time, we’ve had 120 students successfully go through the program, which is huge,” Ms McCulloch said.
“The program is all about trying to give our young people the same opportunities as people in metropolitan Melbourne.”
Ms McCulloch said some of the students assisted by the scholarship program over the years had been heavily impacted by issues such as COVID-19, family breakdown and domestic violence, and some had lived in a caravan park or kinship care while attending school.
Former Kyabram P-12 College student Olivia Cartwright hopes to one day graduate as a primary school teacher and will soon depart for La Trobe University in Bendigo on that quest.
She said her scholarship helped reduce pressure on herself and her family.
“We were umming and ahing whether I would have that ability to live away from home, but this gives me that extra confidence booster that I can go away and have that bit of stress taken off my shoulders,” she said.
Lachlan Wright also attended Kyabram P-12 College and will study accounting at La Trobe in Bendigo.
“It really enables me to go on to further study with the financial backing,” he said.
“It would have been a fair bit of a struggle. So it takes off some of the pressure.”
Sophie McLean completed her Year 12 studies at Rushworth P-12 College, but sees her future as a nurse, and in particular, a midwife, after studying at La Trobe University in Bendigo.
“I'm the oldest of four. So I'm the first one to go off and it's really special for me to be able to set an example for my younger siblings and hope that they know that they can do the same thing,” she said.
The Greater Shepparton Foundation said only half of the region’s young people finished secondary school and just a quarter went on to tertiary education.
“We could see that young people were not pursuing further education because of the cost. So that's why we established scholarship funds,” Lift Off Scholarship committee chair Mary-Ann Linehan said.
“I'm a career practitioner so I see first hand how young people struggle to envisage that they can do it and that this is just one little thing that can help them make that move.”
Greater Shepparton Foundation partnered with Greater Shepparton Lighthouse Project to tackle barriers to further education and over the past eight years raised more than $500,000 for the scholarship program, with support from local businesses and individuals.
More information regarding Lift Off Education Scholarships can be found on the ‘Scholarships’ page at: www.greatershepparton.foundation