Round 6 Grant Recipients 2019

Project Project Coordinator Project Description Amount Funded
1. 'Melbourne University Biomedicine Students' Orchestra (MUBSO) James Choi The Melbourne University Biomedicine Students’ Orchestra (MUBSO) is a club for students from all backgrounds and faculties of the University of Melbourne, united by a love of music and passion for charity. The core of our orchestra revolves around playing music of a high standard, which provides a fulfilling creative outlet for both the players and the community. We have a strong community focus through our charity concerts and volunteering events. MUBSO has held five major concerts since its inception, and plans to hold two more concerts, a community outreach camp, and various community music enrichment programs in this project. $10,000.00
2. UMSU International Night Market Aviya Bavati Night Market is an annual event which aims to bring about cross-cultural exchange through food, games and performances. Based on historical attendance we are expecting attendance this year be between 9,000 and 10,000. Night Market is probably the largest student run and led event in Australia. Approximately 30 international student clubs/groups will get together with UMSU International to sell a mouth-watering variety of ethnic food and to showcase their cultures through games, market goods, performances and costumes. $17,000.00
3. Supporting career planning outcomes for remotely-located Indigenous graduates of the Specialist Certificate in Cross-Cultural Conservation and Heritage Professor Robyn Sloggett This project supports capacity building and mentorship for Indigenous graduates of the inaugural Specialist Certificate in Cross-Cultural Conservation and Heritage, which in 2018 comprised nine artworkers working in remote Aboriginal art centres. Designed as a post-graduate knowledge exchange program for students with senior cultural and community knowledge holders, the Certificate draws on the Grimwade Centre’s extensive industry and community partnerships to enable graduates to preserve important cultural material. As part of the assessment tasks students mapped their employment and career ambitions. This project will provide six months of administration and mentoring to support students in the realisation of these ambitions. $19,892.50
4. Indigenous Graduate Symposium Josh Cubillo A symposium will be organised to provide an opportunity for Indigenous graduate students to present their current research to their peers in a culturally safe environment. The event will also be opened to Indigenous undergraduate students to observe and have examples of Indigenous research students who have progressed their academic journeys. $10,000.00
5. Southbank Creative Arts Graduate Research Publication Jonathan Graffam This project proposes the creation and launch of a printed and electronic journal featuring academic contributions from current graduate research students across the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. The aim is to highlight creative arts practice-research taking place at Southbank campus and to formalise this in a published form. The project invites graduate researchers from across each of the discrete schools within the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music (MCM) to engage in cross-disciplinary collaborations. The funding application is inclusive of 2 seminars for graduate researchers and a launch event for the publication. $16,500.00
6. Increasing Robogals Melbourne's presence Hannah Eichenbaum Robogals runs programming and robotics workshops at schools & public libraries. We want to be able to reimburse our volunteers who otherwise could not attend our workshops due to the high cost of travel. This funding will cover the cost of the Uber or Taxi from and back to the university. The workshops are run by University of Melbourne students who volunteer their time. The travel and time costs associated with getting to these workshops can be costly as we aim to go to schools further out of the city to expand our presence and assist schools with limited resources. $6,854.00
7. Indigenous Art and University Space Benjamin Francis Lew This project will bring the beauty of non-Western arts into public university space. In so doing it will engage students of diverse cultural backgrounds with alternative, interesting and important narratives arising from cultural material. Creating a series of new, innovative exhibits utilising the Leonhard Adam collection, held at the University of Melbourne, the project plays the dual function of engaging students in new, creative modes of display, and creating links between the University and indigenous cultures. $10,000.00
8. Access & Inclusion @ Union House Theatre Petra Kalive UHT upholds the highest principles of access and inclusion, built on hard work undertaken to date on UHT’s Disability Action Plan. Regular consultation with student theatre groups reveals a passionate community keen to deliver best practice models of access and inclusion across student theatre. Union House Theatre is dedicated to improving the culture around access and inclusion within Arts & Culture at UMSU. They have made significant strides in recent years.  This application requests funds so UHT can continue to improve the accessibility offering to students interested in theatre and Student Theatre Groups presenting work to diverse communities with additional needs. $6,000.00
9. Visualise Your Thesis competition Jennifer Warburton Visualise Your Thesis (VYT) is an exciting competition that challenges graduate research students from all disciplines, of all technical abilities, at any stage of their candidature, to present their research projects in a 60-second, eye-catching, audio-visual digital display. By creating a "visual elevator pitch" students develop crucial engagement and employability skills including effective communication, digital literacy, and visual storytelling. The grant funds will be used for the VYT Competition prize pool, workshops and competition marketing. Funds will also be used for community-building through catered workshops and a VYT Awards showcase event, which is open to all. $2,500.00
10. Communal vegetable garden at the Werribee Campus College (Kendall Hall), "The Inaugural Vettie Patch" Maya Zamir This application is for the construction of a communal vegetable garden at Kendall Hall. This would be a community project with many benefits beyond providing residents with home-grown vegetables and herbs. The plan would be to place two raised garden beds (to avoid rabbits eating the vegetables) near the outer dining area of Kendall Hall. $1,889.00
11. CHAT FEST Sara Nelson Chat Fest is a regular informal lunchtime session for International MDHS students with English as a second language (ESL). Specifically it will assist students to 1) practice their English language skills in a relaxed atmosphere, 2) become more familiar with the Australian culture of communication, learning and assessment 3) rehearse culturally appropriate ways of communicating with their educators in both campus and work integrated learning (WIL) settings, and 4) build confidence and competence in communicating with patients/clients and other health professionals. $10,848.76
12. Let's Torque Semi-Finals Ben Chen Let’s Torque is a student run science public speaking competition aimed to encourage students to develop and practice their public speaking and communication skills. Speeches are delivered on a STEM idea with impact that students find interesting. Although the competition has a range of events, we hold our annual semi-finals (2 individual events) at Melbourne University, where students deliver their presentations to our judges and the audience. Funding to be spent on: catering, teaching material, marketing material and venue hire for the semi-finals. $1,800.00
13. Built Industry Group Raj Gandhi Built Industry Group (BIG) is a student-run organisation based in the University of Melbourne which connects students with industry through practice-based learning, network development and multi-disciplinary engagement. We cater to 1340 members from Architecture, Construction, Property and Planning. Through events such as - Open Days Series, student-led competitions, Graduate Networking Nights and Lunch with young professionals.  Offering opportunities for practice-based development, industry insights, interpersonal skill development and multi-disciplinary engagement. Leadership, management and communication opportunities are also presented to the committee who organise these student experiences. We are seeking a SSAF Grant to support the running of this upcoming year's activity pipeline. $10,555.68
14. The University of Melbourne Arts Journal Matthew Newman The University of Melbourne Arts Journal is a student-run journal dedicated to publishing the work of students in the Bachelor of Arts program. The SSAF Grant will be used to cover the cost of design, contributions, publishing, printing, and events. The University of Melbourne previously lacked a dedicated extra-curricular platform for undergraduate students to publish academic work. By addressing this service gap, the project allows students to engage their academic interests while exposing them to publishing processes. In turn, by expanding these opportunities the journal helps satisfy the Student Experience and University Strategy Goals laid out by the SSAF Grant. $16,500.00
15. Enactus, The University of Melbourne Tristan Lim Enactus, The University of Melbourne, is a student-run social enterprise organisation working to utilise entrepreneurial action to tackle current social issues and create meaningful outcomes. Funding will be split into four major domains:  flights to facilitate competition at the Enactus National Championships in Sydney, internal and external student engagement events within the university community, operational expenses, and most importantly, our varied social enterprise projects which tackle a number of issues facing our society. $10,000.00
16. UMMSS Wellness Program Sally Chen Inspired by a similar program at Vanderbilt Medical School, UMMSS (University of Melbourne Medical Students’ Society) launched its inaugural Clinical School Cup in 2018 with the vision of improving medical student wellbeing. In the second year of its implementation, our vision is to build upon the extremely successful program by including more wellbeing events and increasing accessibility to our rural members distributed across multiple sites in Victoria. We believe "when doctors are able to stay healthy and happy, that means patients get physicians who are more compassionate and selfless." - Dr Rodgers (Associate Dean at Vanderbilt) to NY Times. $5,000.00
17. PLAY IT UP - Your Brain on Play Ben Deery Research suggests tertiary students are increasingly experiencing disengagement with studies and campus experience, especially “first in family’ students, those from lower SES and diverse backgrounds, mature-age students, those with high stress and mental health difficulties, and overseas/international students. This project will use SSAF Grant funds to workshop, design, and fabricate (on-site at MSDs FabLab) several pop-up “playscapes” around campus co-identified with the NSPP. These playful activations using ‘giant boardgames’ are a novel direct response to student feedback of the need for fun, non-academic experiences, and a “permission to play” on campus, which allow positive connection and social interaction with peers. $20,000.00
18. Women's World Cup Week Karoline Rivero-Bernacki Last year, Melbourne University Soccer Club (MUSC) used SSAF funding to screen the men’s soccer World Cup and brought approximately 2000 students together to enjoy the world game in a social atmosphere. This year, we would like to host a series of events during the Women's World Cup designed to increase student engagement and student participation in women’s soccer. We hope that these events can help connect students within the university and offer more female students the chance to play soccer and engage in regular physical activity. $7,500.00
19. Australasian Womens Debating Competition Rebecca Waldron The Australasian Women Debating Competition aims to develop women in debating, including all that identify as non-cis males. This equips women with the crucial skills of debating and allows them to gain experience and expertise in debating. Crucially, these are transferable skills such as public speaking, critical thinking, teamwork and analysis skills that are imperative within an employment context. The fundamental purpose of the Australasian Women Debating Competition is for women, as a marginalised community and underdeveloped entity to be able to practice and better their debating skills, allowing the to be more competitive within debating as a whole. $5,000.00
  Total$187,839.94