Indigenous Emerging Leaders Honoured
15 June 2012 at 5:36 pm
The Fellowship for Indigenous Leadership has announced its two ‘Emerging Leaders’ for 2012-2013.
Melissa Stevens and Rueben Berg were honoured with the titles for their work in the indigenous community.
Stevens has dedicated her career to working for the Aboriginal community in Victoria to build up its profile and advocate for the needs of the community. Her primary focus has been working with those suffering from mental illness and raising community awareness.
Within the Aboriginal community she believes there is a lack of awareness towards housing, education, employment, drug and alcohol substance abuse as well as an over representation within the criminal justice system.
Berg has spent the last 10 years working with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Housing Unit in Queensland as well with Aboriginal Affairs Victoria and the Indigenous Affairs Unit.
Having studied architecture at university, Berg is now engaged with various universities assisting them in improving the appropriateness of their indigenous architecture course content.
The Fellowship provides support to recognised leaders and opportunities to emerging leaders within Victoria's Indigenous communities. Building Indigenous leadership is a way of improving the social and emotional well being of communities, and the Fellowship helps Indigenous communities to develop innovative responses to current issues and future challenges.
