National NAIDOC Award Winners

Dr Chris Sarra (Queensland) - Scholar of the Year

Chris comes from Cherbourg and has deservedly won numerous awards for his tireless efforts to improve conditions for Aboriginal school students. His accolades include the Australian of the Year, the Regional Local Hero Award for Queensland, and he was named in the Bulletin’s Smartest 100 people in Australia, which saw him recognised as one of the top 10 educators in the country.

But it is for his achievements, however, that we honour Chris today. Chris was the first Aboriginal principal of Cherbourg State School, in Queensland. School attendance, community involvement, literacy and numeracy rates were drastically low. Chris realised that he had to motivate the children to want to learn but he had to have curriculum that would also teach them to be “strong and smart”.

Chris’s phrase, “strong and smart”, has become a philosophy based around the core concept of Aboriginal Identity as a positive life force underpinning successful educational and social practices. It has inspired Indigenous school children and teachers to learn to develop higher self esteem and have higher expectations of themselves. He has lead by example - he has completed a doctorate in psychology recently at Murdoch University, thus being himself a model of academic excellence for others to follow.

Chris has the aim of developing and nurturing more Indigenous leaders, particularly principals in remote, regional, and urban schools with large Indigenous populations.

Chris inspired many young Aboriginal students to be enthusiastic about learning and to attain higher academic outcomes. Their future is bright because they know that success is very attainable and that they can be strong and smart Australians.