Two brilliant Queensland women have been named as the joint recipients of the Women in Media Queensland 2024 Career Boost Scholarship.
The $5000 Career Boost Scholarship aims to assist mid-career women in media by helping to fund further academic studies or professional development. The aim is to help women to broaden their qualifications to boost their promotion and leadership prospects, or to help them to transition into another media-related field.
This year the judges decided that Torres Strait journalist Carli Willis and APAC Network co-founder Oriel Morrison would jointly share the $5000 prize to assist them both to undertake further studies.
Carli Willis is a journalist working on Waiben (Thursday Island) for the Torres Strait Islander Media Association (TSIMA).
After working for the ABC in Longreach, Ms Willis moved to the Torres Strait to live on her family’s ancestral homelands (mother’s side).
She has a passion for documenting the stories told by elders and the community, and aims to showcase their voices to a national audience.
Ms Willis’s scholarship money will enable her to undertake a photography course with photojournalist Michelle Grace Hunder and share her learnings with other women at TSIMA.
“I am grateful for the opportunity and excited to learn to create beautiful photos of our diverse, multicultural people and communities,”
Ms Willis said.
“It will mean a lot to me and to our team at TSIMA, to record stunning photos of our Elders to last a lifetime.”
“They are our cultural knowledge holders, they are examples of resilience and help guide our communities through highs and lows. Eso.”
Oriel Morrison is co-founder of the APAC Network - a media business, based in Brisbane, built to educate and inform communities across Asia on the importance of sustainability.
Ms Morrison has worked in media since 1999 with Reuters, Nine Network, Bloomberg and CNBC and has a passion for sharing her knowledge of the industry with other women in media.
The scholarship will assist Ms Morrison to undertake the AICD Company Directors Course and use her presence on boards to encourage leaders to employ women in business.
"I’m incredibly grateful to the team at Women in Media, and excited about the opportunity this scholarship provides,” she said.
“I'm passionate about driving meaningful change in our industry when it comes to diversity and inclusion, and a seat at the board table is a wonderful place to start."
Previous recipients of the scholarship include Nance Haxton, Monique Dews, Simone Bell, Jodie Gunders, Kellie Riordan and Meg Purtell.
Discover more about the Women in Media Queensland Career Boost Scholarship here.