News & Events

This past year has seen another milestone passed for the Foundation—the corpus has now move sustainably above $2million dollars, after eight years of fund raising. In that time our first PhD student (Mona Taouk) has completed her thesis, and submitted it successfully (the Anika Foundation/Macquarie Foundation PhD in Adolescent Depression and Suicide). We have a growing alumni of teachers since 2006, who have completed their research study trips abroad, and have returned brimming with enthusiasm and new ideas for application in our schools—and we are looking soon to extend this scholarship to Western Australian teachers.

In the last couple of months we have awarded, exceptionally, three NSW teachers scholarships, due to the exceptional quality of the candidates this year. They are Kristopher Wrona (Chester Hill High, District School Counsellor); Donna Redman (John Thierry Catholic High, Pastoral Care Coordinator); and Genevieve Slocombe (Dunoon Public Primary School, Principal).

In the coming year we are looking to advertise the PhD scholarship nationally, and take proposals from any universities working on the issues of adolescent depression and suicide.

This years’ Glenn Stevens speech was a record turn out: it seems that every July major issues in the global economy are particularly pressing and, of course, the reputation of the foundation has grown stronger. Ably supported by the Australian Business economists, with a lot of hard work from Tony Westmore, and sponsored by Macquarie Group, we registered 405 guests, we seated and fed 387 guests plus media, and the event will net revenue of around $81,000. If anyone hasn’t paid yet, please do so as soon as you can—and if you use the automatic transfer of funds, please make sure that you add your name and address (or affiliation if any)—as in previous years we have received funds and not known to whom we should address a receipt.

The Board would like to thank KPMG (and in particular Peter Russell, Esteban Dentice and Jesse Alderton) for all the work they do for the Foundation on audit, and related matters. We would also like to thank John Atkinson and Co. for doing the tax for the Foundation as pro bono work.

We will let you know as soon as we have more news on new the PhD and teachers scholarships—in the not too distant future. We are looking forward to helping promote the issues of adolescent depression and suicide again in 2013-2014, and we look forward to your help.

Adrian Blundell-Wignall
Chairman, the Anika Foundation