An Indigenous Altona student has become one of three Australians, and the only woman, to be awarded this year’s prestigious Charlie Perkins Trust Scholarship.
Olivia Slater, an honours graduate of Victoria University’s Indigenous studies, will leave in September to pursue her Masters degree in social anthropology at Cambridge University.
The Yamatji/Nyoongar woman, whose lineage is from south-west and central Western Australia, left school after Grade 9 because of family circumstances.
“My parents divorced. My father – who is non-Indigenous – left the family completely, never to return,” Ms Slater said.
“Three months later we lost our house in a fire. My mum and I then left Perth and I left formal schooling.
“Looking back on it, I was so traumatised that the concept of even attending school, particularly in a new area and starting afresh, was just so far beyond what anybody could manage.
“I ended up leaving home at 16.”
The 34-year-old mother of two returned to study four years ago.
“It took finding my now-husband and having children to set an anchor down in Melbourne and make me think about the ways in which I could nourish myself instead of just working to survive,” Ms Slater said. “That’s where university study came in to it.”
She said Melbourne’s western suburbs had been a nurturing place to raise her children.
Ms Slater, who works as an Indigenous program producer at Footscray Community Arts Centre, said the Aboriginal community had welcomed her.
At Cambridge, she plans to study how Aboriginal Australians are making theatre, TV and movies.
“We’re basing a lot of our stories on real events and real people and there’s a growing trend of Indigenous authors, not writing histories in books, but actually performing historical events,” Ms Slater said.
“I’m going to explore that with an anthropological lens, which is quite new, and I’m quite keen to explore that social science.”
