Port Macquarie TAFE teacher gets scholarship to Italy
Friday 7th October
Evelyn Doak, a thirty-year resident of Port Macquarie, has won a scholarship to attend a study tour for occupational health and safety (OH&S) professionals in Milan, Italy in 2006.
A part-time teacher in OH&S, Business and Information Technology at Port Macquarie Campus, Ms Doak was awarded the scholarship by the international business publication OHS Daily News, and competed against executive-level OH&S practitioners from Australia, New Zealand and South-East Asia.
The purpose of the scholarship is to keep professionals up-to-date with global best practice and build good-will and ambassadorship in the OH&S community and it will enable Ms Doak to attend the three-yearly International Congress on Occupational Health from June 12 to June 16 2006.
In her application for the scholarship, Ms Doak wrote of her personal passion and commitment to the cause of improving occupational health and safety in Australia. “I lost my father and my uncle when I was very young to workplace accidents, and a very close friend as well, so I decided to do something about it,” says Ms Doak. “I want to make a difference, and teaching is the best way of achieving it….I’m absolutely thrilled to receive the scholarship and I know it will help me achieve my goals.”
After administrative careers in law and local government, Ms Doak is now an accredited trainer for several organisations, including TAFE NSW and WorkCover. She has also just recently reached auditor status for Standards Australia.
She has taught at Port Macquarie “from the time when the campus was an annex of Wauchope TAFE and still mostly a mound of red dirt,” says Ms Doak. Head Teacher Debbie Kennington says that Ms Doak is a highly regarded teacher with an extraordinary ability to lift the potentially dry subject of OH&S to new heights of interest.
