How the Mary Jane Lewis Scholarship Foundation is changing lives

Anastasia Arestia’s path to a successful engineering career wasn’t paved with privilege. Her childhood included exposure to drug addiction, mental illness, foster care and personal health challenges, making higher education seem like an impossible dream.

“I was a foster kid, so I went out on my own shortly after I turned 18,” Arestia says. “I wouldn’t have been able to afford to go to uni at all.”

But a scholarship from the Mary Jane Lewis Foundation changed everything. It provided her with $10,000 a year over her three-year undergraduate degree and the means to experience life.

“When I finished my undergraduate degree, I moved overseas for a year and came back to do my Masters. I’ve been working for over a decade now. I’m an engineer and have a strong, successful career directly as a result of the scholarship.”

The Mary Jane Lewis Scholarship Foundation, established in 2004, provides scholarships to talented young women who, like Arestia, face financial and other barriers to accessing higher education.

Her lived experience of disadvantage is something that now informs her work as a council member for the Foundation, where she is part of a team that selects and supports the next generation of young women experiencing disadvantage who are ready to embark on university studies.

“All these girls have come through such adversity that there is much more to them than just what a piece of paper says.

“Our scholars are all brilliant, but they’re not all necessarily in the 99.95 percentile of students. We make judgment calls based on our knowledge and understanding of the tertiary system about how and who we support – and I was one of those people.”

The Mary Jane Lewis Scholarship Foundation has now supported more than 100 young women since its inception, providing them with scholarships to pursue undergraduate degrees.

Sarah Ramantanis is also a council member. She is the CEO of Young Australian International Affairs and works at the peak math and science education body, the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute.

Her appointment “represents the inclusivity of having someone with lived experience to be an advocate for the scholars and for the things that young female leaders need today,” she says.

A key benefit of the Foundation is its network, which provides scholars with access to mentorship, guidance, and a community of like-minded individuals. Plans are afoot to bolster the mentorship program later this year.           

“Once you’re a Mary Jane Lewis scholar, you’re a part of a community of all these other young people with really high potential, and you’re expanding your network,” Sarah says.

Equity Trustees is Trustee of the Foundation, as well as the related Dafydd Lewis Trust, which was founded by its Welsh-born benefactor in 1943 to provide equity based scholarships to young men, who might not have otherwise received a tertiary education.

Sixty years later, the Dafydd Lewis Scholarship Trustees wanted to also support young women, but were barred under the terms of Lewis’ will. They instead chose to set up the Mary Jane Lewis Scholarship Foundation – named in honour of Dafydd’s second wife.

The Foundation’s initial funding and growth has come from the generous support of Dafydd Lewis alumni and other donors who share a similar passion for the education and advancement of exceptional, yet financially disadvantaged, young women in Victoria.

For more information about the Mary Jane Lewis Foundation, to fund a scholarship or to make a donation go to: https://maryjanelewis.com.au.