Charity founder and young entrepreneur, Annabelle Chauncy, has been named the Harvey Norman Young Woman of the Year. We chat to her about leadership, poverty and about the futures of young women. Ninah Kopel reports.
The NSW women of the year have all ‘made it happen’, reflecting this years theme for International Women’s Day. One of these awards went to Annabelle Chauncy OAM, co-founder of School For Life – a foundation working to provide quality education to communities in Uganda. Annabelle and co-founder David Everett, had seen the poverty in East Africa first hand, and were determined to do something about it.
How did School for Life come about? It’s the story of a little boy named Elvis. Before the foundation was formed, Annabelle had been working on refurbishing an orphanage in Uganda when local boy Elvis fell ill from Malaria. The little boy was burning up, and Annabelle was afraid that he would die.
“We carried him to the medical clinic and spent $5 getting him clinic treatment that actually saved his life,” She says “When we brought him back from the clinic . . . his mother was just so grateful because she didn’t have the money to save his life. To think about that kind of inequality in this world really blew my mind”.
In Uganda, only 56 per cent of children complete primary education and class sizes are often over 120 students per teacher. Schools are also lacking supplies like pens and basic furniture. School For Life’s goal is to initiate sustainable change. This is done through a focus on vocational training and access to clean water and health care, as well as primary education.
“It’s really about giving them a hand up, not a hand out,” Annabelle says.
Annabelle with her Co-Founder, David
“In order to create sustainability, we needed to make sure all employment opportunities and the project was basically driven and led by the community. So the whole model of School for Life is to empower local people to help themselves. We employed local people to build, to do everything from cooking, cleaning, teaching, maintenance, security… Everything in order to ensure it’s their project not ours”.
Annabelle says that corrupt government and bureaucratic obstacles proved challenging at first, as did sourcing funding.
“When we first set out we were 21 years old with a very big dream, and quite a number of people thought, ‘you know they’re 21, why would we invest our money in them?’” She says.
“But then they came back and realised that we were driven by this passion to make a difference, and quite quickly we developed some credibility and got a board of directors behind us.”
School for Life won Annabelle and David medals for the Order of Australia earlier this year. Annabelle’s Harvey Norman Young Woman of the Year Award is further recognition of her efforts. She says that this type of award is important for young people.
“I hope that I can inspire other people to make a difference, whether that be a small one or a big one, within either their community or internationally,” she says.
To find out more about School for Life, please click here.
