Every year, Yalari founder Waverly Stanley AM and his wife managing director Llew Mullins, travel to regional and remote communities to meet promising First Nations Year 6 students and offer them a place at a leading boarding school.
They sit at kitchen tables, in lounge rooms, and on back verandahs talking to mothers, fathers, and relatives of the students as the bright-eyed 11- and 12-year-olds listen to what a Yalari scholarship means, and the commitment needed to see it through.
For many First Nations children living in regional and remote communities, corporate sponsorship provides a valuable lifeline to educational opportunities others take for granted.
As Australia marks National Reconciliation Week until June 3, Corporate Travel Management CEO Australia and New Zealand Greg McCarthy said corporate sponsorships were an opportunity to give back to the Indigenous Australian community.
“Supporting important programs like Yalari, Cowboys House and Moorditj Yorga enables our business to support the lives and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians across the country,” Mr McCarthy said.
“These partnerships also provide CTM employees with valuable insight and an ongoing education into the challenges facing Australia’s First Nations people, by supporting our corporate commitments to building a more inclusive community and workplace.”
A recently announced corporate sponsorship deal with CTM and Virgin Australia will make a meaningful difference to Yalari’s cohort of 248 students, as long-distance travel is often the only way they can attend boarding school.
Yalari, which means “child” in the Birra Gubba language of North Queensland, provides First Nations children from regional and remote communities full secondary school boarding scholarships.
Ms Mullins said Yalari did more than provide a quality education.
“We liaise with the family, the school, tutors, and Indigenous communities to ensure our scholarship recipients have every opportunity to grow up happy, healthy, well-rounded young people to become future leaders and change-makers of their communities and Australia,” Ms Mullins said.
“Securing corporate sponsorships can be challenging because there are so many deserving organisations doing impactful work with a limited amount of funds.”
Cowboys Community Foundation CEO Fiona Pelling acknowledged the funding challenges, and said they needed to double the current investment each year in order to sustain their current programs and services.
Cowboys House is a unique boarding facility for young First Nations and Torres Strait Islander children attending partner schools in Townsville.
The organisation also runs Cowboys Try for 5! – an inter-school challenge designed to address the impact of students missing foundation learning in the primary years through poor school attendance.
Ms Pelling said each student’s needs were unique.
“In addition to government funding and fundraising, we have a gap in excess of $10,000 per student, per year to provide a full service,” Ms Pelling said.
“This includes uniforms, nutritious meals, extra-curricular activities, cultural programs, creative and visual arts, a music program, health and wellbeing, tutoring, driving lessons, career support and more.
“Our year 13 and 14 Transitions program provides semi-support while these young people settle into employment, further education and training, find safe and affordable accommodation, manage their budgets, and work towards independence in adult life.”
Indigenous education support opportunities also extend to making a university or tertiary education more accessible to First Nations people.
In Western Australia, the Moorditj Yorga Scholarship Program (MYS) at Curtin University supports mature-aged Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women to enter university, pass their studies and receive mentoring as they transition into their careers.
Moorditj yorga means “strong woman” in the Noongar language of Western Australia’s southwest.
CTM’s corporate sponsorship has supported five yorgas in their higher education pursuits, with two who recently graduated and three on their higher education journey.
Recent graduate Renna Gayde completed her Bachelor of Social Work at Curtin University via the Moorditj Yorga Scholarship Program.
“I never believed that I’d go to university, but it’s proven to be an investment in myself, my children and my community,” Ms Gayde said.
“I am a Walbunja woman from the Yuin Nation. Gaining the scholarship increased my confidence and validated that I was on the right path.”
Ms Mullins said Yalari was currently seeking sponsors for their 2025 intake, with approximately 15 scholarships still requiring funding. Yalari receives 50 per cent of its funding from the Federal Government, but relies heavily on philanthropic contributions from corporate Australia, trusts and foundations, individual donors, and fundraising events to help meet the remaining cost of their operations and programs.
“We also have an audacious goal to raise enough funds to allow Yalari to operate in perpetuity,” Ms Mullins said.
“The Yalari Foundation was set up to establish a corpus that will allow us to generate sufficient investment income to provide a perpetual source of funding.”
To sponsor a child requires a commitment of $20,000 per year which covers tuition and boarding costs from years 7-12. There are many ways to support Yalari – via a student scholarship, or a pathways (university) scholarship, or through a contribution to support Yalari’s holistic student support program, or alumni leadership development.
For more information on these programs or to donate, visit:
