Throughout my past two years of university, I have participated in tutoring Indigenous youth through the Graham Polly Farmer Foundation.    This has kept me connected to helping my community and has taught me a lot about myself.   When I first left for university I had ambitions to pursue a career in physiotherapy and return to Broome to assist in sporting programs for Indigenous youth.

Entering my second year  of university I became aware of Occupational Therapy (OT) and the extremely low number of Indigenous people in this field of healthcare.    The various pathways of OT aligned with my  personal goals of staying involved in the community and creating a comfortable environment to receive healthcare.   It was the beginning of 2022 when I started this course and so far, I have just become more determined to finishing the degree and begin helping Indigenous people around Australia.

Finishing my degree will be a great personal achievement but it will also provide me with the opportunity to work in rural and remote communities as these are where the barriers of healthcare are most prominent.   My goal in my career is to give back and create the comfortable environment that myself, my mum, my grandmother and her mother never experienced.

I want to dedicate myself to helping Close this Gap between Indigenous people and healthcare and I believe that with my ambitious nature I will make great changes in my time.

The second semester of 2024 was slow-paced, and I found it difficult to uphold motivation. I was repeating a functional anatomy unit, which involves a deep understanding and knowledge of the bones, muscles and nerves in the human body. I engaged in weekly labs with cadaver’s and tutorials to consolidate my knowledge of all these topics.

Having completed this unit at UWA in 2021, I was not excited to work through the dense workload again and did have doubts about myself throughout the semester. However, I did complete and pass the unit, with a score of 57%. I do recognise this is not my best efforts, this year has been very challenging personally. Repeating the first year really impacted my motivation towards my studies and dealing with familial problems has not been easy. I have however, had more time to branch into other hobbies and opportunities.

I have been working part time at Healthway, which advocates public health across WA. This opportunity to work within the Government sector has provided great insights into the processes and discussions required to support public health in WA. I have been busy pursuing my talents in painting and completing commissioned dot pieces, while also doing resource designs at work too. Being able to express my artwork on current resources and bring local knowledge to discussions has been very fulfilling.

From being involved in a Healthway supported program myself in my younger years while in Broome, to now communicating insights into improvements and developments for the program has been incredible. My abilities in professionalism, social confidence, initiative and organisation have improved immensely over my last year working at Healthway. I have also been able to make great connections for future communications in the allied health area. It has been a year of great personal growth, I have had to learn patience, determination and confidence in myself. I am excited to enter into second year studies this year and really start progressing through my degree. Working in the public health sector has maintained my passion in helping others and has encouraged me to dive in strong to full-time study this year.