The pinnacle of giving

The pinnacle of giving

A charitable foundation helping disadvantaged young people achieve their education and career goals has opened its scholarship program for 2011.

The Pinnacle Foundation was set up by a group of friends last November to provide scholarships and bursaries to marginalised GLBTI youth across Australia.

Pinnacle Foundation founder Sean Linkson told Southern Star Observer while the inaugural two scholarships were given to NSW applicants, the Foundation is looking further afield for next year.

“We really only launched last year and had a little test run of the local market,” Linkson said.

“A lot of the people involved came out of Sydney, as we requested applications with as many people in our loop at the time.”

Linkson said the Foundation is particularly keen to hear from people in remote areas of Australia.

“It’s a really important area to target — remote rural areas, Indigenous, disabled members of our community,” he said.

Both 2009 scholarship recipients came from country towns and suffered bullying because of their sexuality.

“[One recipient] was marginalised by his community. His best friend, who was also gay at school, committed suicide because of what he was going through,” Linkson said.

“That sent him into a very strong depressive state and he dragged himself out of it, took himself to Sydney to study and held five jobs down while he was completing his undergraduate degree.

“He came along to us and wanted to do an honours degree in geology … so we’ve hooked him up with a scholarship to fund his university fees and also put him in touch with a really good mentor.”

As well as poviding financial assistance, the Foundation also assigns young people ‘vocational mentors’ to help them get a head start in their chosen industry.

Linkson said the idea to set up the Pinnacle Foundation — which boasts former High Court judge Michael Kirby as its patron — came from a similar organisation in the US called the Point Foundation.

“We didn’t set this up lightly. We pulled together a taskforce made up of people from the education sector and the youth support area and came to the conclusion that there was a great need out there to help some of these young people and that’s what inspired us to do it.

“There are lots of organisations out there that can support [GLTI young people] in terms of a roof over their head or money, but there’s no one out there giving them a leg-up to achieve their educational or life goals around a job.”

Scholarship applications are open to 16–24 year-olds who meet the Foundation’s criteria. See the website for more details. Applications close October 29.

info: Visit www.thepinnaclefoundation.org

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