Scholarship boost for battling family

By Sarah Schwager
A CRANBOURNE student’s desire to help improve cultural relationships has won her a prestigious award.
She is one of just six recipients in Victoria.
Angelina Eli, 16, won the Merlin Myer Leadership Award, a $2000 scholarship, which will go towards her studies.
Angelina, who moved to Australia in 1994 from the Cook Islands, has since been a powerful force in education about the Islander culture both at her school, Cranbourne Secondary College, and within the community.
Last year, Angelina helped form the Pacific Islander Youth Group at her school to promote positive aspects of Islander culture, provide a positive role model for younger students and encourage harmonious relationships between Islander and non-Islander students within the school.
About 10 per cent of the students at Cranbourne Secondary College are of Islander background.
Angelina also helped organise the Polynesian Festival in December last year, which had about 50 Pacific Islander participants and 200 people attending.
In January this year, Angelina organised Rarotongan performers for the City of Casey Australia Day celebrations in Cranbourne.
Angelina said the most important volunteer work she had done was a three-week trip to India in January where she helped at an orphanage and visited children in villages that had experienced recent trauma.
“Experiencing life there made me realise the positives here,” Angelina said.
“I realised I needed to stop taking things for granted and make a difference if I could.
“Where I come from originally we don’t have many opportunities. But in Australia there are no limitations with what I can do with my life,” she said.
Last year her father had a heart attack and was unable to work for a year and her family of five children had to live off their mother’s $400 a week wage.
Angelina said the scholarship money would go towards the cost of school uniforms and books.
“This is such a blessing. It’s been a really big struggle with finances and this will really help my parents get us through school.”
Angelina plans to become a teacher and travel around poverty-stricken countries after she leaves school.