Ms Anna Rakoczy

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Fulbright Western Australia Scholar

“The Australian Employment Covenant (AEC) is the most ambitious Aboriginal employment initiative in Australia’s history. If successful, it has the capacity to break the cycles of unemployment, welfare dependency and disadvantage suffered by many Indigenous Australians. Businesses across Australia and the Government have shown tremendous support for the AEC by committing to provide jobs to Aboriginal people and funding for training, respectively. The major challenge now lies ahead in filling those available jobs with unemployed Aboriginal people.”

Anna Rakoczy, a Senior Associate with leading Australian law firm, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, is the winner of the 2011 Fulbright Western Australia Scholarship. The W.A. scholarship is supported through a fund established by donations from the W.A. government, W.A. based universities, companies, foundations and individuals.

Anna will use her Fulbright Scholarship to undertake a Masters in Law at Berkeley Law School. Her objective is to undertake a program of study, research and prepare a thesis to further her work in the area of Indigenous employment.  In particular, Anna’s thesis will make practical recommendations regarding future implementation and delivery of the Australian Employment Covenant (AEC).  The AEC is a national initiative which aims to place 50,000 unemployed Indigenous people through training and into sustainable employment. Since its launch in August 2008, Anna has been working with the AEC as its sole lawyer, on a pro bono basis.

“The response to the AEC has been staggering with over 26,000 jobs committed by corporations across Australia since its launch.” Anna said,”The major challenge now lies in implementation of the AEC. That is, filling the committed jobs with Aboriginal people, recognising that some of those people may have been long term unemployed or be suffering from a range of social problems such as substance abuse.”

Anna’s objective is to use her Fulbright Scholarship and Masters in Law studies to prepare a thesis which explores options for adopting the principles of “social enterprise” in the future delivery of the AEC, including a detailed description of a proposed model and its possible benefits.

“Social enterprise means applying market-based principles to run an organization to achieve a social purpose. The benefits of social enterprises over the traditional charitable model include greater accountability, economic self-sustainability and, arguably, they are more suited for achieving social change.  Further, social enterprises have had proven success in achieving employment outcomes for disadvantaged and long-term unemployed groups. In making my thesis recommendations, I will research and draw upon existing social enterprises around the world which have had success in this area.”

Anna intends to disseminate her thesis directly to the AEC and relevant Government Departments and hopes that her recommendations will maximize the prospects of success of the AEC in reducing the social and economic disadvantage faced by Aboriginal people in Australia  

Anna has an LLB (First Class Honours), and a BSc (Anthropology) from the University of Western Australia. She has won awards and honours including the Australian Young Lawyer of the Year, WA Young Lawyer of the Year  and the Philip Lionel Sharp Memorial Prize in Law. In her spare time she enjoys yoga, surfing, running, travel, reading and writing.

The prestigious Fulbright program is the largest educational scholarship of its kind, created by U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright and the U.S. Government in 1946. Aimed at promoting mutual understanding through educational exchange, it operates between the U.S. and 155 countries. In Australia, the scholarships are funded by the Australian and U.S. Governments and corporate partners and administered by the Australian-American Fulbright Commission in Canberra.

Anna is one of 26 talented Australians to be recognised as a Fulbright Scholar in 2011. Applications for Fulbright Scholarships in 2012 open on 1 June, visit www.fulbright.com.au

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