Janine Lockwood is a strong Anaiwan woman from Armidale currently in Year 12 at New England Girls’ School.
At the moment she is making decisions about a lot of different things ‘like with where I want to go and who I’m gonna be when I’m older. I have an interest in education and health having been brought up by a lot of strong women that love to educate and help other people. I am interested in teaching young kids, helping them find out about who they are and what they want to do. I feel like the UNE is one of my options where I can study so that I can do that.’
Having attended the Oorala Youth Leadership Camps since Year 8, Janine has been involved with improving the camp experiences because they are such a great support to other young people. At the beginning Janine could see that the experience of the three-day live-in Camps was making a better and stronger community in Armidale by empowering and inspiring her generation to do well and really succeed.
Being given the opportunity to show leadership at a later Camp for Janine is really a proud moment, knowing she is helping other students flourish and pick up confidence. Watching a younger girl, shy and quiet, coming to a camp and helping them to come out of their shell so they can go back to their communities stronger about who they are is what it’s all about.
Janine clearly acknowledges that the Oorala team has really helped her. ‘They’re really supportive. If I struggle at school I can always go to them and they’ll help me out.’ And the advice she’d give to a girl, or even a young boy, is to just take every opportunity. ‘I know it’s hard when you’re getting to a stage where you have to actually make decisions and you don’t know where to go or what to do. And I feel if you take the opportunities early on, during school, your options open up. It makes it so much easier knowing you’ve got support, there are others to help you along the way.’
The university experience is not only limited to the Camps, as Janine has attended a number of Experience Days as well. The Experience Days bring a group of students on-campus to experience two study areas at UNE and create a good opportunity to learn about what it would be like at university.
