Perth Voice Interactive

NOTRE Dame University law and arts student Genevieve Phillips has been awarded its 2025 New Colombo Plan scholarship. 

The scholarship will allow Ms Phillips to spend a year studying at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji and a semester studying at the National University of Samoa. She will also complete internships in both countries. 

Her passion for learning more about the life, history and native cultures of the Indo-Pacific was sparked by a Notre Dame immersion experience in Cambodia last year. 

After spending time with her Cambodian peers learning about their different cultures, she realised her perspective on the way of life in Cambodia had completely changed. 

Ms Phillips said the trip helped her appreciate the value of immersing herself in other cultures. 

“It was through this experience that I became fully aware of how valuable the New Colombo Plan Scholarship Program is in educating students in a unique and positive way by fully immersing them in cultures which are often misrepresented or misunderstood.” 

The New Colombo Plan is an Australian Government initiative that aims to lift knowledge of the Indo-Pacific by supporting undergraduate students to undertake study, language training and internships in the region. 

Genevieve said she hoped to make lifelong personal connections with the people of Fiji and Samoa and to build long-term relationships with organisations that have links with Australia. 

“I hope to aid in their education of the Indo-Pacific, looking past the tourism sector and deeper into what each country has to offer on a personal and global scale,” she said. 

“I realised what I could get out of going on these trips and it gave me such a massive sense of fulfilment that I thought, ‘this is what I want to do’,” she said. 

Pilgrimage

Ms Phillips recently spent two weeks in Rome as part of a Notre Dame pilgrimage elective, visiting churches and other significant religious sites, attended a mass led by Pope Francis at the Vatican and had dinner with Australia’s new Cardinal, Mykola Bychok. 

“I want to thank Notre Dame for giving me these sensational, life-changing opportunities, one after another, and for allowing me to study overseas, as well as thank my references Karen McCluskey and Nigel Edwards,” she said. 

Outside university, Ms Phillips has been the leader of the second violins with BlueScope Youth Orchestra for several years. She is a mentor for her high school St Mary’s Star of the Sea and has been a youth mentor for upcoming musicians in Greece, Bali and New Zealand.