The University of Notre Dame Australia has congratulated law and arts student Genevieve Phillips for being awarded a prestigious 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.
Ms Phillips’ 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 earlier this year.
She said this trip helped her appreciate the immense 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.
Ms Phillips 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.
Ms Phillips is studying a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts (History) on Notre Dame’s Sydney Campus, both of which tap into her key interest in international relations.
She has spent the past two weeks in Rome as part of a Notre Dame core unit pilgrimage elective, where she has visited 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.
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Genevieve Phillips awarded New Colombo Plan Scholarship (UNDA)
