Yalari: empowering the next generation through education

Rebecca Archer
Welcome to The Remarkables – Grant Thornton’s podcast that seeks to uncover stories about remarkable people doing incredible things for their community, bettering the world for future generations and inspiring others to do the same. 

I’m Rebecca Archer, and today I’m joined by the founders of Yalari – Waverley Stanley and Llew Mullins. Yalari is a not-for-profit organisation offering secondary education scholarships to Australian boarding schools for Indigenous students. The organisation values education and fosters a community for students to thrive. 

Welcome Waverley and Llew – thank you for joining us on the podcast today! To open the episode, I’m going to let you both introduce yourselves to find out who you are and where you’re both from.

Llew Mullins
Okay, I'm Llew Mullins and we live in the hinterland of the Gold Coast. I'm the Managing Director of Yalari, which is a national company, so it doesn't really matter where we live, but that's where we are.

Waverley Stanley
And I'm Waverley Stanley. My wife, my queen, my white sugar – we both started Yalari in 2005, a not-for-profit company where we've got indigenous children at boarding schools all around Australia.

Rebecca Archer
Fantastic. Now, before we get into the nitty gritty, we do love to ask our guests what they're reading or listening to or watching at the moment. Do you have any recommendations?

Llew Mullins
Okay, I'll go first again, I'm listening to The Imperfects. Actually, their episode from last week is Billy Slater. I'm listening to an interview with a footballer. Can you believe it? On leadership. It's actually really good. I'm about 15 minutes into it because we don't have a long drive to work, so that's what I'm listening to, and I read anything on dog behaviour to help out with our three dogs at home, and I'm still reading books because I haven't mastered it yet.

Waverley Stanley
And it's quite ironic that Llew says she's listening to a podcast by a Queenslander, which is Billy Slater, who used to be the fullback for the Queensland Maroons, and Llew was a staunch New South Wales supporter.

Llew Mullins
And I know that Billy Slater is the coach for the Queensland Origin team – I can tell you that.

Waverley Stanley
You've already said… you’ve already said your stuff. So, the book I am reading is Never Finished by David Goggins, who done twice, Navy Seals and also the Air Force and he's an ultra marathoner and guest speaker in America. Yeah. So just all about mental toughness, physical awareness. So that's what I'm reading right now.

Rebecca Archer
Fantastic recommendations. Thank you so much. All right, so the first question I wanted to ask you about the work that you do is quite a big one. What makes you both so passionate about education for indigenous students?

Waverley Stanley
From my experience, you know, growing up in a little small country town, my mum and dad were born and raised in Cherbourg, a little Aboriginal community outside of Murgon, and just getting an opportunity by my grade seven teacher, Mrs Rosemary Bishop, who's seen something in me as an Indigenous young man at twelve years of age in 1979, and it's changed the course of my life and gave me a purpose, I suppose, where I always wanted to be a teacher, just like Mrs Bishop and another teacher, Mr Ken Matthews, who was my grade five teacher. They were significant men and women in my lives in my primary school years and I had a lot of wonderful teachers and masters, and I think education is my passion and purpose until the day I die.

Llew Mullins
And I guess for me I think I'm sort of a bit of a humanitarian. Of course I believe in education. I believe in the holistic being. Just looking after anybody, that's what drives me every day, looking after each other, I think.

Rebecca Archer
That's beautiful. Thank you so much. Waverley, I wanted to ask if you held any leadership roles when you were at school?

Waverley Stanley
Yeah, well, I suppose even before I went to school, I'm the eldest of seven children, so I've got three younger brothers, three younger sisters. From a leadership point of view, they're looking after my siblings. I was captain of a lot of my sporting teams growing up and then I became a prefect. I was school captain in 1979. There was myself and Christine Renof who was another Indigenous person and we were both school captains at Murgon State School in 1979, and then I went on to be the first Indigenous prefect at in 1984, and I'm going back for my 40-year reunion. So, I've had a lot of leadership positions, but I think you don't have to have a title to be a leader. That's what I find in this day and age right now – just be a good person I think.

Rebecca Archer
Very good point. Thank you for that. So how did the name Yalari come about?

Waverley Stanley
So Yalari came about... so my mum was from North Queensland and I asked my grandfather, Bloki Wilson and Yalari means child in Birrigubba language on my mum's side and it’s our overarching company, and it means child, and I’d like to think that, you know, children in education gives us a purpose now more than ever in this, in this current day and age and current space of education right now. And it's been our purpose for both my queen, my white sugar, to make some changes in our lives both personally and professionally then.

Rebecca Archer
So, what are some of the pathways for receiving scholarships through Yalari?

Llew Mullins
The pathways to receiving a scholarship for our secondary students that look, it comes in all sorts of different ways. The main way, especially with Indigenous people, is word of mouth. So, if somebody's cousin's brother's sister was on a Yalari scholarship, that's the best way we get our recommendations. 

The primary school teachers themselves – a lot of them around Australia know about gallery now, which is really good. So, it's an application process. Mum and dad and nan and whoever the guardians are, and the child answers a pretty rigorous application. Then we go and interview in the hometowns and then the school – the school themselves that we partner with actually has the final say in offering that child a position at one of our partner schools.

Rebecca Archer
So, is there anything in terms of selection criteria particularly that you're looking at when it comes to these applications?

Waverley Stanley
Yeah, I think the biggest thing that, Rebecca, we’re looking for… we've been doing it now going on 20 years… is I look at what they call or it's just not found in the dictionary, but it's just resilience, it's the connection for them that the parents and the families and the children especially are committed 100 per cent. 

What we're looking at for that is a commitment to making sure that, you know, they're going to be committed for 40 weeks out of 52 weeks of the year. The children are going to be away from home at school. I think the biggest thing for them is making sure that they are going to be committed for, you know, one year in year seven and all the work from grade seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven and twelve. That's the most important thing is that they are committed. 

From doing all these interviews all these years, I think I can pick both a family and child inside of two minutes of who we would like to take, the calibre of children we're looking for. The parent support, whether it's a grandmother, grandfather, mum or dad or just a single mum or a single dad, and I think that's our biggest selection in regards to that then.

Llew Mullins
I think the word that Waverley uses a lot is ‘stickability’. That's the one you won't find in the dictionary and it's hard to describe but it makes sense. It's just even at the age of eleven or twelve we can tell when a child has that stickability. It just shows in what they've already done in their really young lives. So that's really, really important because, you know, there's lots of joys and benefits and incredible opportunities but it's difficult as well for the whole family so we need that stickability, resilience, strength to make it work for the whole family.

Rebecca Archer
And of course that's quite a young age that we're talking about for a child to be going to school away from family so much of the year. What sort of characteristics do they need to have to be able to get themselves through that? I imagine that they'd take a lot of resilience for one.

Waverley Stanley
Yeah, a lot of courage I think too Rebecca. 

You know, it's a big step when you go from a little small community for some of our children where the whole of the school that they're going to is bigger than their community. Another one, you know, sleeping in a bed on your own for the first time in your life, never being on a plane before, all of a sudden, you know, you're, you've got a child that's say from Darwin, you know, it's 40 degree in the shade up and down and you go to Geelong and it's mighty, mighty cold. 

Just the transition that these children can transition into a school, never forget who they are, where they come from and their family history and a lot of children have been doing this many, many years and I think for our Aboriginal and Torres children that are on Yalari, this is a choice for our children whereas before for their grandparents it was never a choice I don't think and even in my case I was thinking in 1979 that I was going in 1982 to Murgon State High School for year eight to twelve but my life changed through Mrs Rosemary Bishop of which I'm very, very grateful now.

Rebecca Archer
And I would imagine too we're talking about the child but also for the family it must be quite bittersweet because they would want the absolute best and this opportunity is just an incredible life changing thing to happen to that child. How do you find that the families react when they have the prospect of this child that they love and adore and they don't particularly want to be away from has this amazing opportunity to go to boarding school?

Waverley Stanley
Yeah, I think it's a transformation, I think for the families there, Rebecca, like, all of a sudden they've got a young lady or a young man, eleven or twelve years of age and they're a child, and then all of a sudden they grow up before their eyes and they're quite independent. 

We've got a lot of stories. But I remember Aggie. Aggie was from Melville Island up above Darwin and, and her aunty after the first term, and Aggie went to Presbyterian Ladies College in Armidale. She was a lot more confident in who she was because she didn't have Aunty Patsy to look after each and every day. 

So, I think just the courage to go away, and the families are also very courageous because they're not going to sit down with their son or daughter or their niece and nephew every morning, and that changed the whole dynamics of family relationships, and that's when it's a journey for us as an organisation and a journey with the families and the children then.

Rebecca Archer
How many students have you helped through Yalari?

Llew Mullins
I think at this stage we have about 250 on secondary scholarships throughout Australia, and there is about 700 on top of that who are either our alumni or still going through schools elsewhere. For whatever reason, they didn't complete year twelve on our Yalari scholarships, but they're at other schools still completing year twelve – so almost a thousand now.

Waverley Stanley
And Rebecca, our goal when we first started Yalari in 2005, and when we started our three children and one boy and two girls, our goal was just 250 children, and that's all Llew and I wanted to do was help 250 children because… and then all of a sudden the need just kept on going and he just kept on growing. So, like this year, we've placed 59 children on our scholarships around Australia.

Rebecca Archer
What's the retention rate like in terms of the students and how do they also connect to culture?

Waverley Stanley
So, our retention rate is 93 per cent right now, which is really good, but when, when the children first come on board there, Rebecca with us, we ask them from a retention rate point of view, as you know, the goal is to finish year twelve at our respective boarding schools. 

But if you don't finish year twelve at your boarding school, finish year twelve if you go back home to your communities. That's the most important thing for us, and then for them, staying connected to their culture. Yalari is a safe landing space for a lot of our children that allows them to be connected culturally with other indigenous children from all around Australia, whether they're Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander children, we get them an opportunity. But I always say to our children, you are no less Indigenous just because you go to a boarding school.

Llew Mullins
In regards to culture, the children go home every holidays and sometimes in between the term when they have exit weekends at boarding school. So as Waverly says, home is home. They're there for the two months over the Christmas holidays. It's very important to us that they are still connected to their culture. There's no way they're not going to be, and then they have their culture at their school. They become part of the school community and also the Yalari culture, which is another family group on the side that supports them as well.

Rebecca Archer
Can you tell us a bit about the impact Yalari has had on students?

Waverley Stanley
I suppose the impact for us personally and also for our staff is that we've seen these children at eleven or twelve years of age and then they come to us, and the impact is we get to see them grow in front of our eyes and they become young adults, and then all of a sudden, we're now educating the second generation of Yalari children right now. 

So, the impact that Yalari is having on communities is that these children, they’re heroes in their own communities because they’re very much grounded in their humility, and then they’re saying, and its really saying, if I can do it, you can do it also, and that's the impact these young adults and these young children have had with their families and with their communities, and that's really, really important. I think.

Llew Mullins
I think there's a wider impact as a group as well when we're talking about, you know, 500 alumni who graduated, another 200 who've been through the program, another 200 who are on the community. That's quite an impact Australia wide together as a group of educated year seven, year eight year nine year twelve or 30 year olds who've now finished their degrees and raising families – the impact on Australia – is something that we see right now, but we will see in 10-20 years when they really do take up those leadership positions in Australia in all sorts of areas, whether it's in their family, their community, Government, corporate Australia. That's the impact and that's the importance of what we're aiming to do.

Rebecca Archer
Do you have any examples of students who've gone on to achieve significant success after completing the Yalari program?

Waverley Stanley
Oh, a lot of stories, you know, it's one that springs to mind straight away. Like Kyle Blakely, for instance. You know, Kyle, we thought was going to go into politics, but all of a sudden he was doing swimming lessons with some children in the holidays during his uni studies, and now he's a grade one teacher at Kew Primary School in Sydney and he's heading up our alumni association in regards to being on the board also.

Llew Mullins
He's the chair.

Waverley Stanley
He's the chair of it.

Llew Mullins
We've got a couple of students who are doctors now. They've gone the long way around. We've got about another half a dozen training in the medical field. We've got really good, solid, young Indigenous men and women being incredible family members. We've got council members, we've got Mekayla Cochrane, who's a Councillor out at Moree. Carla Fisher, Deputy Mayor of Cherbourg.

Waverley Stanley
Very local community.

Llew Mullins
Yeah. We've got children in mines. We've got… I shouldn't call them children. We've got young people who are the first in their family to buy a home or enter into a mortgage, I should say. That's what we measure as success. People who have bought their car outright, got a license, got a job, feeling good about themselves. So, there's so many different ways you can measure success, but it's out there. Every day, we see it.

Rebecca Archer
You talk about generational change being important to what you do at Yalari. Can you tell us a bit more about the exact power of generational change?

Waverley Stanley
So, the power of generational change for us right now... so our biggest focus, I think, is now we've got all these young adults that are young leaders. So, the leadership development for us is about the generational change that is going to happen throughout Australia. You know, these young people are going to be all connected because they've had an experience with Yalari. 

But the generational change is that, you know, our young adults are educated, and they can go back to their communities, and we've got a group of our alumni now that want to do some community initiatives about engaging and uplifting of education initiatives in partnership with their local communities. So we're going to roll out that next year, in regards to, we've got alumni going around Australia – going back to their local community and being involved with the children that is going to be the next generation of children coming through that could come onto a Yalari scholarship or for us just to be involved with the communities and saying, this is an opportunity that we can get together. 

But I think the other thing for us is collaborative change is working with like-minded individuals that got the same value set as us as an organisation to bring about that generational change. And we as educators in this space with Yalari, but we want to thank our, you know, our sponsors, our donors, our supporters, the people that believe in an idea that we can do something collaboratively together to make a difference in this country. And that's what we really are doing, and that's generational change – just from a perspective of just partnerships and respect and just doing something. 

And for Llew and I, you know, we get to see the best of Australians and their generosity, and we are so honored that, you know, we have an opportunity to. To be working in partnership with so many wonderful Australians that just walk beside us and we just do it as Australians together. And that's the most important. That's generational change, if nothing else.

Llew Mullins
Generational change is also an expectation, like Waverly said, you know, one Thursday afternoon, he thought he was going to Murgon State High School with an interview on the Friday he was going to Toowoomba, and just the shock for him, but his parents. So then, and a lot of the students that we're still interviewing, it's sort of, they've had six months to get in their head – I could go away to boarding school, nobody else in their family has, but I think their children, the expectation will be I'm going to a good school because mum and dad did. That's the generational change. There's no question about, well, why wouldn't I go because mum went. 

I think that's generational change with the level of… this is my options. I can go to school in Charleville if I want to, but I can go as well and I can work in health and I can actually get a degree because my mum has just finished her degree. That type of thing – I see that as generational change.

Rebecca Archer
This might be a bit of a tough question because I'm sure there are so many, but I wonder if you could share what some of your most rewarding moments have been?

Waverley Stanley
Most rewarding moments, I suppose when we went away to Canberra, just seeing a bunch of our alumni just talking, as you know, and they were different ages that they've all graduated and all coming around, just talking about experiences that they can be involved in. 

That was a moment where we were saying, you know, there's real change of foot on so many levels that here we're at the Governor General's house having a function, we're at Parliament House. You know, two significant places of leadership in this country, and here we were with these Indigenous young leaders that are wanting to make an impact in Australia as a collaborative group of young alumni from 18 years of age right through to 31, 32 years of age. 

That was significant for us. Now, Llew and I were just sitting back, and we were just thinking, we interviewed all of these children.

These were children at 11/12; these were children that have come into our house; these were children that we nursed along being homesick. These were children that we attended the funerals of their loved ones, or father or mother that they might have lost, or their grandparents, and all of a sudden, to be sitting here and seeing these children and young adults that are so strong within themselves, but so strong collaboratively together. That was something spectacular for me, and it was quite moving, because all of a sudden we are seeing that generational change in front of our eyes, and the conversations around that wasn't about the negative stuff of Indigenous Australia or Australia. This was about a powerful message that we, as an organisation with our alumni to make a difference, and that was really pleasing.

Llew Mullins
I think for me, it was one of the first moments… it was only about a month ago that I sat back, and I thought, people have often talked to us about sustainability and a succession plan. It was one of those moments. I sat back, I thought, wow, I could probably just sit here, and they could give me a cup of tea and they can get on with it and do it, and just to look at the different lives those 2021 young people were living, but all connected with that one experience that they'd all had coming from different states, different towns, different schools, but they'd all been together with the Yalari experience. They just look at each other and know what they've been through. They don't have to say a word. So that was…that was a pretty important moment. There's been lots of ones along the way, just some of the children getting through to year nine, year ten or year eleven, year twelve. It's just. Just momentous seeing the joy, especially the ones who've got through some hard times.

Rebecca Archer
What exciting projects have you been working on or maybe are coming up at Yalari exciting projects?

Waverley Stanley
Yeah, we're just about to embark on…. we're taking some corporates out to central Australia. That's one project we've been wanting to do where we wanted to get that engagement back with a lot of our supporters and sponsors over the years we're taking our two corporate partners, both Davidson and RACV. So, we're taking them to central Australia. We've been doing our year nine camps for – this is our 16th year – I think.

Llew Mullins
I think so.

Waverley Stanley
And that's really exciting because we're just getting a chance to sit down and have conversations with our sponsors and donors and our supporters and just sitting down and yarning away. And the other development is that we celebrate 20 years next year and we're wanting to share that with our supporters and say, you know, and families to say, you know, this is a significant milestone but what we're going to do in the next 10, 15, 20 years, that's going to be significant for all of us together.

Llew Mullins
I think this year we have created our Alumni Advisory Board with the idea of these young people. They go through the AICD training to become board members – not only of Yalari – but of other boards in Australia, be in those leadership positions. So, we're actively training a new group every two years and support them. So, the group that's training now will be finished by the end of the year, and the other thing we started this year was a program called Yalari Ready. So, there's a bunch of children right before year seven who – bright eyed, 100 per cent committed to their attendance at school – but they need a little bit of help with their academic level. So, it's a transition year, not a repeat year, transition year, and we've started that with nine really brave, courageous and enthusiastic young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. We've started up here and that's going unbelievably well. So that's some of the exciting things that are happening for us this year, right now.

Waverley Stanley
And we've got seven young ladies on that Yalari that are in a house and we've got a house mother and we've got four or five young female alumni that look after these young ladies. So that's really different outside of our space and it's very successful already now and we're wanting to continue that into the future.

Rebecca Archer
And was the purpose of that, to retain that connection to culture for the students?

Llew Mullins
Yeah, they didn't have a room at the boarding school. I mean, at our boarding schools we normally have two or four students per year, and we had nine extra children. So, the school created another classroom for them. So, we needed that space, but you're right, there's a cultural connection and confidence with that group that are living in the house too.

Rebecca Archer
And to finish off Waverly and Llew, what's the most remarkable advice that you've received?

Waverley Stanley
The most remarkable piece of advice I got was my wife sitting next to me, my coach, and I was training for all these triathlons and things like that, and then I wouldn't be training, and then she'd say, just put your shoes on – and that's it. So, it stuck with me, and now I come up and I might make an excuse for something else. Just put your shoes on, bub.

Llew Mullins
It sort of goes beyond just training. It's just life. Wake up. Put your shoes on and get on with it. I guess it comes from that very old adage: pray with your feet. You just gotta do something. So, I think that's my thing, and now I've turned it into, yeah, I say it to all the children, oh, I can't do that. Can't do that. Put your shoes on. There's your first start, and off you go.

Rebecca Archer
So how can we continue to follow Yalari and both of you, beyond the podcast episode today?

Waverley Stanley
All right, so if they go to our website, which is www.yalari.org, and we've got all of our socials, but for the listeners that may be in Brisbane, if you wanted to find out, there’s a number of billboards, Goa billboards around Brisbane at the moment right now that has got our stories of our alumni and children that are significant places throughout Brisbane, and, you know, just a bit of advertising with Goa, who's one of our supporters, and that's one way you can also find out just while you're driving in the car listening to a Yalari podcast, and all of a sudden, Yalari flashes up on the screen and voila!

Rebecca Archer
Waverly and Llew, it has been an absolute pleasure to speak to you both today. Thank you so much for your time. It's just been such a joy to share in your journey.

Waverley Stanley
I just wanted to say, for us, as an organisation, it's been a journey for us, and I always say it that, you know, strangers become friends, friends become family. And we've fostered that as a Yalari family. And everyone that's been involved with us all these years, we're very grateful because it has allowed us to be a part of something that's so much bigger than us as two individuals, and we get an opportunity to do something significant for other children, and I keep saying to our children, if you can be anything in this world, just be humble and kind. And we're very humbled by the support that we've had all these years. And the journey of Yalari and the growth of Yalari is because so many people have believed in an ideal that we can do things together. And as Australians, we are. And to all of our friends and supporters and our families and everybody that’s believed in us all these years, coming up to 20 years, we’ve done this together, and I just wanted to say thank you very much because we are honoured to be part of that.

Rebecca Archer
If you liked this podcast and would like to hear more remarkable stories, you can find, like and subscribe to The Remarkables podcast by Grant Thornton Australia on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Leave us a review or ideas on who you’d like to hear from next. I’m Rebecca Archer – thank you for listening.