How Erin is creating a Ti Tree change

Anthea (forth from left at back), and Shamayla (next to Anthea).

A Strathfield primary school teacher has founded a scholarship program offering Aboriginal students from the Northern Territory an urban education in some of the inner west’s best schools.

Erin Greenhalgh, 27, a Year 3 teacher at Trinity College, came up with the idea for the Ngurra Jirrima project in 2007 after a teaching stint in the remote Aboriginal community of Ti Tree, 200 kilometres from Alice Springs, on the edge of the Tanami Desert.

“Some of my students had pen pals at Meriden College in Strathfield,” Erin says. “We all took a trip to Sydney in 2007 and visited Meriden College and one of the Ti Tree girls said she wanted to go to school there. The idea developed from there.”

Now established, the education program covers tuition fees, living expenses and boarding for rural Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. So far five Aboriginal students from Ti Tree are currently living and learning in Sydney – a far cry from their almost entirely Aboriginal home town of just under 1000 people.

“Two girls are studying at Meridan College in Strathfield and three boys are students at Trinity Grammar in Summer Hill.” says Erin.

Erin is currently guardian to the two indigenous girls, who live with her in her Strathfield home.

“Life in Strathfield is the other extreme to life in Ti Tree, especially the pace," Erin says. "But we really enjoy living in Strathfield with the diversity it offers. Living in a multicultural place and in the city, gives these girls valuable skills for life.”

According to Erin's mother, Meridan School principal Dr Julie Greenhalgh,the girls, Shamayla Presley and Anthea Joe, both 13, are thriving in their new environment.

“Both girls have shown enormous progress,” she says. “They are now quite fluent in English, they are familiar with wearing a school uniform, including shoes; they are quite familiar with city living, have mastered our complex rail network, and are enjoying their time at Meriden.”

 rin, who earned her Bachelor of Education at The University of Sydney, hopes to expand the program in the coming years.

“We get funding from Centrecorp in Alice Springs, some community help from the Strathfield Rotary and from the Meriden school community.

“But the program needs a lot more support.”

Shamayla says: “The best thing I like about Meriden is all the sports that I can play”.

To discuss sponsorship send an email to Erin: egreenhalgh@trinity.nsw.edu.au.