Hearty Congratulations for Deakin CREATE

Bennelong Foundation would like to congratulate Deakin CREATE for recently winning the Equity & Opportunity Award at the AFR Higher Education Awards. In 2019, Bennelong Foundation partnered with Deakin CREATE to develop a Guide for Students from A Refugee Background on How to Access & Succeed in Higher Education. This Guide is a brain child of our former Intern and current Board Adviser, Omar Al Kassab after the hardship to access higher education he identified and experienced when he first arrived in Australia as a young person from humanitarian background.

CREATE co-founders Associate Dean (International) Professor Alexander Newman, and Deakin Business School research fellow Dr Karen Dunwoodie said the award was a testament to the passion and hard work of the project team.

“CREATE assists people from a refugee background to access higher education and obtain employment, supported by our innovative research-based employment programs and career clinics. We help produce much of the material that helps refugees on their employment journey,” Professor Newman said.

“This is the first AFR award for the Faculty of Business and Law, and on behalf of our many colleagues involved, we’d like to thank the many donors who have supported CREATE, including the Helen Macpherson Smith Trust, the Bennelong Foundation and numerous individual donors.”

The annual AFR Higher Education Awards celebrate the contribution of higher education to Australian prosperity and quality of life in ten categories. The judging panel includes the editor of the AFR, current and former vice-chancellors and chancellors and other experts in higher education. Read more about the award here. Learn more about the project here.

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