 My name's Shirley Close, I'm a descendant of the Batchela people and Gumpal people. This year is my 32nd year of this journey and I've been to quite a whole lot of different places. I went to school near Bundaberg Children's and high school in Brisbane. As a little girl all I wanted to do was help and I kind of didn't have a good knowledge of who I was and where I was from. And it never occurred to me that I could be a teacher. They had created the JCU, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education program called ITET. My sister was encouraged to apply for that and she got in and she said just come up Shirley, spend a couple of weeks with me. I started to think about how much harder it is getting through these sorts of programs as an urban Murray. And I thought well maybe if we could get into these areas we could help that better. I often gave lectures at uni about community engagement and Indigenous education and there's a real high need to see more Indigenous people. Helping other staff see that Indigenous kids can do this and raising their standards rather than lowering them. Being Indigenous teacher means to me that I can empower children in primary schools no matter who they are or how they feel or especially if they're Aboriginal that they can reach their goals.