The UQ Boilerhouse Community Engagement Centre, located at UQ's Ipswich Campus, was presented with a Vice Chancellor’s Equity and Diversity Award at The University of Queensland’s annual Diversity Week award presentation, held on Wednesday 14 May 2008.

The UQ Boilerhouse was presented with this award for its work on a project entitled Realising opportunity: Developing informed engagement strategies for potential students from CaLD communities in the Ipswich/Inala corridor.

This community-based project focussed on local migrant and refugee communities in the Inala to Ipswich corridor in south east Queensland, specifically those with a Pacific Island background. Using an engaged outreach approach, the project explored the attitudes, understanding, expectations and aspirations of potential students and their families to tertiary education and went on to develop several innovative approaches for immersing outreach activities into Pacific Island communities.

One such approach was the PolyVision event held on Ipswich campus in July 2007 which aimed to encourage Pacific Islander students to ‘dream big dreams’ when considering their future after school. A second innovation was a bi-lingual (Samoan and Tongan) DVD funded by Multicultural Affairs Queensland which will be distributed to local schools and community groups.

The $5,000 prize money will be used to support ongoing equity initiatives for potential students from Pacific Island backgrounds.

For more information, contact Pam Lamb in the UQ Boilerhouse on 3381 1278