Indigenous mentors ‘close the gap’

The Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME) will be available to University of Queensland students from this year, with the generous support of Simon Fenwick and the Fenwick Foundation.

AIME’s educational program supports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students through high school and on to university, employment and further education.

Professor Bronwyn Fredericks, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Engagement), said the University had partnered with the Fenwick Foundation to bring AIME to UQ.

“It is with the generous support of donors that we are able to create new opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, leaders and change-makers at UQ," Professor Fredericks said.

"We deeply value the support of Simon Fenwick and donors like him who are working with us to create change for a better world for Indigenous Australians and all Australians.

“Data shows that students who complete the AIME program finish school and transition to university at the same rate as other Australian children – effectively closing the gap in educational outcomes.”

In 2019, AIME was delivered at 33 sites across Australia in partnership with 14 universities.

The organisation also is delivering its curriculum and mentoring methodology to about 1000 marginalised youth in South Africa, Uganda, Nigeria and the USA. 

“I hope you will get on board with this exciting opportunity and promote it through your teams,” Professor Fredericks told UQ leaders at an event this week to welcome AIME to UQ.

AIME founder and chief executive Jack Manning Bancroft said imagination was important to success.

“In unpredictable times, imagination is one pathway with answers to the challenges we face going forward,” Mr Manning Bancroft said.

“This partnership is about bridges between tomorrow’s future power-holders and those at risk of being left behind – the impact of which we hope will be hundreds upon thousands of solutions and people leading us to a fairer world.”

Contact: Donald Johannessen, d.johannessen@uq.edu.au, ph +61 7 3365 7319.