 It's always been a dream of mine to go to university, but growing up where I came from and what I've experienced, it just seemed like it was going to be very, very difficult. My childhood was very turbulent and dysfunctional. There was kind of no stability. We were always running away from something. Applying myself to school was difficult because I always felt different from the other children. There's a lot of bullying related to poverty. I was sent to school with no food. Every time we moved somewhere new, I had to start a new school. That was very nerve-wracking for me. I remember having panic attacks from a very young age, about six years old, which is quite abnormal. I now learn. I had very bad anxiety. Despite that, I really liked learning. I'm kind of fascinated with the concept of lived experience practitioners. I've seen people myself and you just don't gel with them if you feel like they don't understand you. So, I wanted to use my experience and what I've experienced and gone through to help other people that were like me. I made the decision during high school that I did want to go to university. So, I applied for the Newstab program at the University of Newcastle and successfully completed it. I'll never forget when they sent me out the little package with all the information in it. I was very, very nervous, but I thought, just give it a go. I think I was really ready to start pursuing something seriously. I heard about the scholarship program and I thought, nah, that's not for me. Like, there's people that need it more, but then I checked out the requirements and I was like, oh, okay, well, this is exactly for people like me. So, I applied and that's when things really started to change with my studies and myself. The Shapings Future Scholarship has allowed me to access psychological support. The scholarship has helped me afford things like textbooks, computer, one of the main things that I used my scholarship money for was actually to pay my rent at my rental property, which I've been living in for, it'll be going on for years now, and I think that's the longest I've ever lived in a house. When I achieved the stability and I knew that, okay, well, I'm not going to get kicked out, I'm not going to have to leave in the middle of the night. It alleviated a lot of the worry and I could really, for the first time, apply myself. It was kind of always a fear in the back of my mind that my life might go back to what it was and that fear is very diminished. Knowing that there's a group of people out there, strangers, who believe in me and think that I can go on to achieve great things has helped me start to believe that myself. I would say to people who donate to scholarships that you're doing an excellent service to society. I cannot thank my donors enough. You're really creating a new society and allowing people that don't have a chance to have a chance. My name's Nikela, I'm studying a Bachelor of Psychological Science at the University of Newcastle.