AUSTRALIA AWARDS FELLOWSHIPS (AAF)

The Australian Awards Fellowships is a prestigious International Program administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) as a part of an overseas aid program. The aim of this fellowship program is to support partner countries to progress their development goals and to have positive relationship with Australia. Through the awards, the fellows can develop links to build their relationship among the partner countries. The AAF offers Australian organizations the opportunity to deepen and broaden links with leaders and professionals in developing countries by hosting fellows from overseas partner (counterpart) organizations. In our case, the Rotary Club of Adelaide Parks (RCAP), is acting as the host organization and has formed a partnership with the counterpart organization, The GIFT Foundation (GIFT) from Tamil Nadu, India. 

RCAP and GIFT have developed a fellowship proposal with an overall aim of strengthening the partnership and links between the Rotary Club of Adelaide Parks and the schools (AGN School and APPU Arivaalayem) run by GIFT in Tamil Nadu, India.

As women empowerment leads definite progress in a country, the partnership decided to focus on women leadership development initially by giving this glorious opportunity to three female teachers in order to  experience the learning on the title “EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT IN TAMIL NADU (INDIA)”. Three fellows who got selected from our schools for the training program were Tm. Ramadevi Suthakar (Asst. Headmistress, AGN), Tm. Manoranjitham Subramaniam (Eng.Tr.AGN) and Tm. Chitra Mani (APPU JSC Incharge). Since all three fellows were new to overseas travel, particularly to Australia and its culture, we were guided and accompanied by our senior leader, Mrs. Saraswathi Goundan. As the fellows took back the learnings  and friendship back to their schools, they reported  that their new knowledge would make a difference not only in our schools but also in our neighboring schools.