Edified have announced the 2023 winners of their Energiser Grants.
Each winning person or group has been provided AUD$5000 to support the development and growth of their project. All the projects are focussed on improving the education of a nominated community and fit within Edified’s ethos of wishing to sponsor positive social change through education.
Each project has at least one student or alumni from an education provider within Australia, NZ, USA, Canada, UK, Ireland or Europe.
The 2023 winners are:
Category: General
Education for All Movement
Empowering underprivileged students: building soft skills for higher education and career readiness
The era of technological advancements and globalisation has presented challenges for Indonesian youth, including the proliferation of fake news and limited critical thinking skills due to gaps in the educational system. Economic disparities and limited access to educational resources further hinder underprivileged youth. Pekanbaru, an industrial city on Sumatra Island, faces high youth unemployment due to a lack of job opportunities and educational mismatches.
Livia and NGO PPSW Riau, through the Education for All Movement, seek to raise grassroots awareness and improve education, focusing on soft skills development for underprivileged high school students in Pekanbaru. They intend to empower youth for better educational and career opportunities while addressing systemic poverty and early marriages among disadvantaged families.
Category: Community-based learning
EPIC Engineering Comic
A non-profit educational comic platform to build engineering knowledge and interest
Engineering is often misunderstood by the public as a maths and science intensive degree. Young people, especially young girls, are unlikely to consider engineering as a career, resulting in a skills shortage in the engineering sector. EPIC Engineering Comic, the world’s first educational engineering comic series, has a mission to impart authentic engineering knowledge and inspire people around the world into engineering through imaginative storytelling with visual arts. This free digital comic platform aims to demonstrate to the world that engineering is not all maths and science, there is a different side of engineering – the evocative and fun side with creativity and imagination.
Category: Equity or First Nations
Koorana Inclusive Preschool – Bass Hill
Koorana is a not-for-profit, for purpose community organisation in NSW. They are building a new preschool in Bass Hill which will reserve 25% of its places for children with disabilities. Children will receive access to early intervention support from allied health practitioners and teachers, and the curriculum will be designed to include them fully. In addition, other children in the preschool will be supported to develop inclusive attitudes and skills for engaging with peers with disabilities – supporting long term community cohesion for future generations. The Edified grant is supporting the purchase of therapeutic resources at the centre.
Category: Experiential Learning
Young Stripes STEM club
Experiential STEM education for underprivileged students in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya
In Kenya, there is an incredible lack of experiential STEM education which disconnects classrooms from the real world. By age 12, students perceive STEM pathways as boring and uninspiring and turn away from these rewarding fields. Ultimately, this narrows their career prospects and leaves them unprepared for globally emerging opportunities.
Hemanshi founded Young Stripes to bring experiential STEM education to students in Kenya. Young Stripes now consists of an incredible team of young adults that are empowering students to learn by doing and making STEM education equitable for students in underprivileged communities.
Category: Employability
Capacity building through education and employment opportunities
Ngutu College is an independent, not-for-profit, socially-just college in Woodville North. Ngutu provides opportunities for young people to achieve success through positive academic, vocational and community outcomes with Aboriginal cultures at the soul. The college is committed to nurturing the holistic development of its children and young people, and the Ngutu café project aligns with this mission by offering practical training experience to disadvantaged young people and parents in the areas of food service, customer service, and retail.
They are renovating an existing school building into a social enterprise; an onsite café and shop selling ethically produced food and other products produced by young people and parents to support pathways towards qualifications and employment. Funding provided by Edified will enable the young people to have the training to become qualified Baristas.
The Koala congratulates all the Energiser Grant recipients.
