Graduate Opportunities

When University of Western Sydney (UWS) journalism student Kellie Greene accepted an international internship in South East Asia, she never envisaged the opportunities that would arise from it. Kellie’s cutting edge story on drug users in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, won the overall award for Best Story (Any Medium) as well as the award for Best Photojournalism at the recent 2007 Ossie Awards.

The 2007 Ossie Award winners were announced at the Public Right to Know Conference held at University of Technology, Sydney, in November 2007. The Ossie Awards is an annual event organised by the Journalism Education Association to recognise outstanding work by journalism students. The entries are judged by media executives across Australia and New Zealand.

“I am incredibly grateful for the awards and especially for the recognition of my journalistic work. It was my international internship that made these opportunities possible,” said Kellie, who undertook a UWS Careers & Cooperative Education International Internship with the Phnom Penh Post in summer 2006/2007.

Whilst Kellie initially found her international experience daunting, as she started photographing aspects of Cambodian life and culture, she became immersed in the many stories waiting to be told. Travelling through the drug streets and alleys of Phnom Penh, Kellie saw how drugs infiltrated the lives of children and families in Cambodia, and managed to capture the “sorrowful cycle of poverty and drug addiction”.

“Kellie is a quiet and intensely reflective observer of Asian events. Her maturity and passion for interpreting reality through her camera allowed her to produce outstanding photojournalism work. Congratulations to Kellie; she truly deserves her Ossie Awards,” said Professor Richard Broinowski, who founded the Myer Fellowship program to promote international internship opportunities for students.

Kellie has recently returned to Cambodia as part of her Visual Communication (Honours) course this year, to study the relationship between the photographer and the photography subject.

Article courtesy University of Western Sydney Careers Service. Originally published in "Around UWS", 25 February 2008, and "CommunityConnections@UWS", April 2008.