News & Events
Young sports star’s scholarship success
Proud Bundjalung woman Lillielle Mahoney is kicking goals both on and off the field. We recently awarded her a sports scholarship in our 2021 round of the Young, Black and Proud program.
At just 13 years of age, Lillielle has an impressive list of sports achievements under her belt.
Playing for regional and state teams and captaining the Brisbane Metropolitan Touch Association team, she’s a star in the making.
Lillielle has competed state-wide, representing the Indigenous U/14 girls team at the Queensland All Nations Touch Tournament in 2020.
Selected at just 13 for the 17 years mixed open Oztag team, she is the youngest member of the team.
She will put her scholarship fund toward uniforms and registration fees for the slew of competitions she has coming up.
“For All Nations, I’m playing on the Indigenous team again. Nationals go postponed due to COVID-19, unfortunately, but I’ll compete in the State Cup this year, and hopefully make it into the semi-finals,” she said.
“Then I’ve got All Schools touch and training for the Year 12 open’s mixed”.
This level of achievement doesn’t come easily, but Lillielle is dedicated and committed, playing or training almost every day – sometimes up to three times a day.
Alongside being an accomplished athlete, Lillielle also receives praises in the academic sphere.
“I’ve taken part in my school’s Solid Pathways Program for high achieving Indigenous students since year four.
Last year, I won second place for my persuasive speech in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Aspirations Program (ATSIAP) Challenge“.
We celebrated Lillielle and the other scholarship winners at an awards ceremony held at the State Library of Queensland. Our partner, the Queensland Family and Child Commission co-hosted the event with us.
ATSICHS award the scholarship annually and celebrate the achievements of Indigenous youth across the areas of academics, arts and sports.
Lillielle is one of five other sports scholarship recipients in this year’s round of winners, alongside five academic winners and three from the arts.
