PRIDE OF AUSTRALIA

INSPIRATION YOUNGLEADER

Lucy Strickland has dedicated her career to improving the quality of life for children in war and disaster zones. For the past 15 years she has worked in more than 20 countries for several international nongovernment organisations, including UNHCR, World Vision, CARE, Oxfam and the Norwegian Refugee Council in the areas of educational development and reconstruction in post-conflict and disaster zones. She has co-ordinated emergency drought response in Ethiopia, and worked in Haiti at the height of the cholera outbreak in 2010. She established a school of the air in Sierra Leone to help children excluded from formal education due to the Ebola crisis. She worked with the Nepalese Ministry of Education after the earthquakes to establish temporary learning spaces and trained teachers in psychosocial support of children. In the past 12 months, her role as the UN’s Global Education in Emergencies Specialist has taken her to northern Iraq where she designed an education program for 160,000 children in refugee camps.

LUCYLUCY STRICKLANDSTRICKLAND

PROF JENNIFER MARTIN

University of Queensland’s Institute for Molecular Bioscience lead researcher Professor Jennifer Martin has made a number of significant advances for gender equity in science in Australia. She has addressed the severe underrepresentation of women in senior positions in Australia by mentoring young women and encouraging positive stereotypes of women scientists. As a member of the National Health and Medical Research Council Women in Health Sciences she has campaigned for gender equity on peer review panels for funding options and proposed part-time options, and introduced the Elizabeth Blackburn Fellowship to recognise outstanding women. She has received numerous awards and is the founding member of the Australian Academy of Science’s Science in Australia Gender Equity Forum steering committee.

JESSE KELLY

NATHANIAL LEIGH

CATHY HAINS

As the head of faculty for differentiated learning at Brisbane girls school Lourdes Hill College, Cathy Hains has inspired numerous schoolchildren to reach their full p potential and enhance their individuality. Her background is in remote and regional Queensland, starting school herself in an indigenous community in the Torres Strait and now oversees the education, support and development of gifted and talented students, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and those who require learning support for disabilities. She shows an intuitive knowledge of her students and creates a supportive learning environment. Five years ago at only 15, Jesse Kelly cofounded a charity to help the homeless from his parents’ house in Burpengary, north of Brisbane. As the managing director of Moreton Bay Regional Community Response, he handles 150 volunteers helping 4000 people per month on top of his day job. Mum Pauline, who nominated him along with husband Darren, said Jesse is the charity’s “unsung hero”. What started as a simple Christmas Eve barbecue for a small number of homeless people in Palm Beach turned into a threecourse dinner for 200 with entertainers such as Troy Cassar-Daley and Adam Harvey for Gold Coast teenager Nathanial Leigh. Now 17, Nathanial began organising the Christmas lunch as a 14-year-old, using Facebook and local radio to spread the word about the event. While the lunch will not take place this year, Nathanial continues his community service work with his involvement in the Australian Anti Ice Campaign. Somerville House Year 11 student Emma Simpson has motivated a group of her peers to hold monthly afternoon tea with war veterans. Held at St John’s Anglican Church at Bulimba, they organise games, music, food and transport for them. She was inspired to start the group, Connect 2 Ve Veterans, after her gr grandfather, a war ve veteran, passed away an and she realised others did not have the family in their lives that her “P “Poppy” did.

EMMA SIMPSON

SUPPORTEDSU BY NOVANO 106.9