People’s Choice: Who is your Champion of the West?
COMPRISING a competition involving eight categories ranging from small business to indigenous excellence in which grants of $10,000 will be awarded to each category winner.
NSW
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MEET your Champions of the West — 23 individuals and groups dedicating themselves to improving the lives of those around them and where they live.
From those advocating for the rights of women to teenagers cooking up a storm, the finalists in Small Business, Start Up, Innovative Workplace, Young Entrepreneur, Community, Indigenous Excellence and Sport in Education are now in the running to win $10,000 grants as part of The Sunday and Daily Telegraph and NewsLocal’s Go West campaign.
Finalists for Young Entrepreneur include high school student Jonathan Massaad, who is juggling his HSC while also running a dessert baking business from the kitchen of his Greystanes home, in Sydney’s west.
He will vie for the $10,000 grant, courtesy of corporate sponsor TAFE Western Sydney, with Joshua Brooks, 15, who started his own Amusements 4 Hire business three years ago, gaming app developer George Konstand, and Nhi Chang, who set up a business reviewing high school assessment tasks for students in Years 10 to 12.
The finalists in the NAB-sponsored categories of Small Business and Start-Up include Shine Early Intervention, which provides therapy services to children with special needs, and Street Uni Clothing, which teaches troubled teens to start their own business.
Four finalists will contest the Western Sydney University’s Innovative Workplace category including Parenting Hub — Centre of Excellence, which offers families vital advice and support on raising babies and toddlers.
Active Kids = Happy Kids, which specialises in physiotherapy-based sports programs for children, will contest the Harvey Norman-sponsored Sport in Education category with Community Engagement, which offers discounted football clinics to children of all religious backgrounds.
The Indigenous Excellence award has two finalists — Creating Strong Aboriginal Student Leaders and The Jarara Indigenous Education Unit partnership with Gondwana National Indigenous Children’s Choir.
In less than four months, the partnership between the Jarara Indigenous Education Unit and John Warby Public School at Airds, in Sydney’s southwest, has allowed 20 indigenous youth across seven schools to celebrate and share their culture within their community and beyond. But with a lack of funding, the choir can no longer support Jarara’s hopes of extending their reach across all of Western Sydney.
Jarara Indigenous Education Unit manager Angela Machado said that while they have maintained a steady number of 20 students per week, their main goal is to improve the lives of all indigenous youth in the west, not just those within the seven schools.
She said the program allows the students to have a voice and celebrate their culture.
The StreetCare Project, Blue Datto Keeping Safe, Kids Say No Program and Real Talk Poetry will compete for the Community award. Each helps the vulnerable with street-level projects.
Go West cafe winners unveiled
READERS have shown their good taste in The Sunday Telegraph and Daily Telegraph Harvey Norman Best Of the West restaurant competition.
Many different types of eateries were chosen as their area’s winners, including many old favourites. But in Mt Druitt it was a relative newcomer Distillery Woodfire Restaurant in Minchinbury that beat perennial Mt Druitt stalwarts West Tradies Bistro, the Village Hotel and Rashays.
Eddie Dib and his sister-in-law Reema Aoun have transformed the once derelict distillery site, which is surrounded by the Minchinbury Winery Gardens of 54 residential lots, an onsite museum and a 1km heritage walking track.
“The Distillery was the last piece in the puzzle, we wanted to keep all the history and heritage,” Mr Dibb said. “It’s an original 1890s building and we tried to reuse as much of the site materials as we could.”
The Daily and Sunday Telegraph together with NewsLocal bring you Champions of the West, a celebration of all that is great in Western Sydney.
Comprising a competition involving 8 categories ranging from small business to the Indigenous Excellence in which grants of $10,000 will be awarded to each category winner.
The nominees are now finalised - but we want your help choosing the winner!
Nominations will be judged by our panel and grants will be awarded at a gala event on Thursday 19 May 2016.
VOTING OPENS ON SUNDAY MORNING, AND CHECK BACK ON MONDAY FOR AN EXTENDED RUN DOWN OF ALL FINALISTS
Categories
Nomination Form:
On mobile? Click here to open the nomination form in a new window
Read the full T&Cs here (PDF).
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