The CEW and Roberta Sykes Indigenous Education Foundation Scholarships have been designed to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman leaders to step up and accelerate their careers. We are proud to announce the winners during NAIDOC Week 2021 as Australians come together to celebrate the rich history, diverse cultures, and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the oldest continuing cultures on the planet.
Deanella and Katrina will attend the Harvard’s online course ‘Public Narrative: Leadership, Storytelling and Action’. Between August and December this year they will join other mid-career leaders, strengthening their capacity to lead. The course is part of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program for Non-profit Leadership and Public Leadership Executive Certificate Series.
Deanella Mack, Indigenous Cultural Capability Leader at EY Australia says
this course will further enhance my natural storytelling ability and allow me to be more deliberate in inspiring action that will bring about positive cultural change for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Deanella is committed to sharing her story with others to inspire young women and to become a role model for other members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
Katrina is a proud Gooreng Gooreng women leading her own consulting business, Cartymara Consulting. Katrina’s current contract is the Indigenous lead academic for the Master of Indigenous Business Leadership launched earlier this year at Monash University. She hopes the skills she will learn through the Public Narrative: Leadership, Storytelling and Action course will “strengthen my capability within the academic space and business sector to empower others through a narrative inspired by my Ancestors and Elders.”
CEW & Roberta Sykes Indigenous Education Foundation congratulates Deanella and Katrina on their scholarship success and we look forward to hearing more of their leadership narratives and powerful storytelling in the future.
Read more on our 2021 Scholars.
About Award Partner: Roberta Sykes Indigenous Education Foundation
In 1983, Roberta Sykes became the first black Australian to graduate from an American university with a PhD in Education from Harvard. She returned to Australia to take up the reins of Black Women’s Action in Education, the group that had raised the funds to enable her to attend Harvard. Over the next 15 years, under Roberta’s stewardship, Black Women’s Action in Education continued to encourage and support Indigenous students to study in Australia and overseas, before being renamed in Roberta’s honour in 2008. The Foundation was the first to offer overseas postgraduate scholarships to Indigenous Australians. Roberta died in 2010, but the Foundation has continued her amazing legacy and has supported over 50 Indigenous students in their pursuit of academic achievement. www.robertasykesfoundation.com
