Nikita Punch: Award winning experience

At the start of the year 17 year old ANZ Mackay trainee Nikita Punch received the Chris Johnson Award at the Queensland AFL SportsReady Graduation.

The Award is presented to an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander trainee, aged between 16-30 years of age, who has excelled in the workplace and demonstrated incredible initiative and leadership qualities.

As part of the award Nikita was given the opportunity to travel to Bamaga at the tip of Cape York (Pajinka) in October for the annual Chris Johnson Cup, a round-robin tournament that features Indigenous players from Cairns and Cape York.

Nikita wrote a short blog post about her epic experience: 

From Monday 10th to Friday 14th of October I had the opportunity to travel with the AFL Cape York House, Staff and Students from around North Queensland region for the Chris Johnson and Angie Nadredre Cup. It was an amazing insightful journey that I had the pleasure of being involved in! My personal opinion is for those who haven’t travelled to Cape York (Bamaga), through North Queensland or this beautiful part of Australia that I have now experienced with the beautiful red dirt, bright crystal blue water, camping and all!! It’s a definite MUST!!! To have won the prize to attend this trip with such talented and inspirational AFL students, staff and past players has been an amazing journey with beautiful scenery and meeting beautiful people with their inspiring stories and journeys! It was an honour meeting everyone along the way and I’m very excited to see how far they go in life!

 

 

IMAGE: Nikita (bottom left) with the AFL Cape York crew

IMAGE: Nikita (left) mid air with her team mate

IMAGE: Nikita with the whole crew

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