New South Wales

Sarah Blackwell, a proud Wiradjuri woman, traces her familial roots from the Mudgee area to the Wellington region of New South Wales, deep into Wiradjuri country. Despite her immediate family residing in Mt Druitt, Sarah’s upbringing unfolded on Darug and Gundungurra country in Penrith and the lower Blue Mountains region. This rich cultural environment has profoundly shaped Sarah’s outlook and fuelled her unwavering dedication to serving Indigenous communities within her medical career.

I am a proud Gundungurra woman who has grown up on Palawa country, Tasmania. From a young age, I have had a deep interest in health and medicine, with my own experiences with illness sparking my curiosity, which has only developed deeper over the years. Due to health issues, I have followed an alternate path to be where I am today, however, my experiences have provided me with a wealth of knowledge and perspectives I am extremely grateful for.

I am a mature aged student with a background as a solicitor. Having been raised on an Aboriginal community and strongly encouraged by my uncles and aunts as an adolescent/teenager, I sought a career as a lawyer to help my people. My career included working as initially as an inhouse bank lawyer, then a lawyer in private practise, to a government lawyer in Queensland and work in Aboriginal community organisations, then to a government lawyer in the Northern Territory, then finally back to Aboriginal community organisations in NSW.

I am a Proud Wiradjuri Man descendant from my mother’s maternal line from the Forbes area of NSW. I currently live on Gadigal Country and continue connections with mob, for example, being an assisted coach to the Waterloo U13 Rugby League side that played in the 2023 Koori Knock and my son is a proud member of the Waverley College Walawaani Indigenous cultural group and player in the Koori Knock-out.

My name is Bianca Knight I am a proud Biripi woman and a second year Doctor of Medicine student at the University of Sydney. I completed my Undergraduate studies in Nursing at the University of Wollongong, and worked as an Indigenous Nursing Cadetship with the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network. I adored paediatric medicine and went on to work as a Registered Nurse in specialty areas including paediatric cardiology, neurology, and neonatology.

I am a Dunghutti woman from Kempsey on the Mid North Coast, NSW.   I was raised and still live in Kempsey.   In 2022 I completed the Graduate Diploma in Indigenous Health Promotions Social and Emotional Wellbeing.   I enjoyed returning to study as a mature aged student and was enthralled by the contend of the course, that I decided to continue on in 2023. to study the Masters in Public Health specialising in Health Promotions and Advocacy with an elective focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Climate Change and Public Health.

I am a proud  Indigenous Wandiwondian Yuin man of the South Coast of NSW that has been blessed with the opportunity to grow up on my country and form strong connections to my community. I have a solid support network within my family and my community, and this allowed me to develop a strong sense of self and comfort in my identity, and it also gave me a solid sense of responsibility towards my people. While I come from a community with a high Indigenous population, I was the only Indigenous male in my year to finish their HSC.

I am a proud Ngemba woman currently living in Sydney.   I have previously completed a Bachelor of Public Health at the University of Wollongong in 2021 and am starting my Master of Public Health.  I have always been passionate about public health, specifically health promotion that aims to prevent chronic illness by educating people about risk factors for certain chronic diseases.   I have always been interested in taking the skills I learned in my undergraduate degree and working in the Aboriginal health sector to give back to my community.

My name is Maiysha Craig, I am a proud Gumbayggirr and Yaegi woman, and I am in  my final year of  the Doctor of Medicine program at University of Sydney.   I am currently studying full time and also working casual weekends and night shifts as a midwife, so I believe this scholarship would help me immensely to be able to focus primarily on my studies to be able to graduate.

Warami, my name is Teasha Poblet, I am a proud Dharug woman born on Dharug land in South Western Sydney.   I am currently in my second and final year of Mast Clinical Psychology at the Australian Catholic University.  For the last three years I have worked in Aboriginal identified roles within child protection.   First in a role as early intervention caseworker working alongside Aboriginal families to address the challenges they were facing.  I most recently worked as a Provisional Psychologist providing evidence-based trauma therapies to children in Out of Home Care.