(L-R) Recipients Jack Winter, Farran Ram and Iefata Williams Three glbt young people with clearly bright futures are full of thanks after being awarded scholarships thanks to funding from the Gay Auckland Business Association's Charitable Tust and the Cartier Trust. The announcements were made at GABA's Xmas Party in Auckland on Wednesday night. The panel deciding on the recipients was led by Geoffrey Marshall, who said while it has been under the media spotlight in the past few weeks over drug issues, when it comes to nurturing queer students; Hamilton's Fairfield College is doing something right. "For the second year in a row we have been forced, just by force of value, to give the scholarship to a Fairfield College pupil," Marshall said. This year's recipient is Jack Winter, the Deputy Head Boy, who started a queer-straight alliance at the school and is a voluntary facilitator at Waikato Queer Youth (WaQuy). He is planning a career in the arts. Winter thanked GABA for the scholarship and said the financial support is "continuing us on to a better place where equality can be achieved," vowing it would actually go to university costs and not clothes. He also thanked his mum, because she asked him to, along with Fairfield College, which he said was "the best school ever" and offers students support and a multi-cultural real world experience and "the media should just bugger off". The second recipient of a GABA Charitable Trust Scholarship this year is Farran Ram, who is going to study to become a doctor. Marshall says Ram left the panel asking "is she really 17?" when she left the room. "She was so mature and so confident and so directed, we just couldn't quite believe it," Marshall said. Ram told the gathering "I hope that in ten years time you guys can come to me and I'll fix a broken foot, a broken hand and do a gastric bypass," to which the crowd broke into fits of laughter. Staying with Winter's theme, she also thanked her mum for all the years she had been horrible and good. A third scholarship recipient was also chosen by the GABA Trust on behalf of the Cartier Bereavement Trust, which assists with funeral costs for people who suffer AIDS-related deaths. Its Chair Karen Ritchie explained "We are very lucky at the moment, people are living longer and Cartier was in a position to help out with a scholarship. And our only criteria around that was that the person that we sponsor goes into the health sector and brings something back to their community, in time." Young transwoman Iefata Williams picked up the scholarship and thanked GABA, along with her family, and said she will use the money to help protect the community through studying and ultimately working in the health field.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Friday, 9th December 2011 - 10:18am