26 Sep Engagement Australia Excellence In Engagement Award
ATEM’s best practice Awards dinner took place in Melbourne on Monday 18 September. The dinner was attended by around 135 people and Engagement Australia’s Deputy Chair, Fiona O’Sullivan and Board Director Dr Rob Brown were there to present the Engagement Australia Excellence in Engagement Award.
The initiative highlighted in the application related to the International PACE Team and the work they have been doing since 2010 with the PACOS Trust, an Indigenous rights organisation based in Sabah, Malaysia. Over 65 undergraduate students from a range of disciplines have travelled to Sabah and worked closely alongside PACOS Trust staff contributing to organisational or community change by documenting Indigenous knowledges, evaluating violations of Native Customary Rights and working with communities to manage resources and develop training initiatives. The winner of the Excellence in Engagement Award was the Team at University of Southern Queensland (USQ) for their work on the USQ Stars Campaign.
This campaign saw staff, students and members of the community sew over 11,000 stars to contribute to the initiative linked with the Commonwealth Games in 2018. With this initiative it was believed there would be longevity of the engagement impact. In addition, there are on-going opportunities for the engagement activities to expand beyond the USQ Stars Campaign to the Domestic Violence awareness campaigns as a lasting legacy from this initiative which is also linked to the One Million Stars to End Violence Project. For more information on the Stars project – visit the website here.