Profile: The Cathy Freeman Foundation

The Converse Blank Canvas Project auction of Converse Chuck Taylor All Star sneakers customized by leading Australian artists and designers will run at www.32auctions.com/BlankCanvas until 26 July. All proceeds of the auction will go to the Cathy Freeman Foundation. 

Established by Olympic gold medalist Cathy Freeman in 2007, the Cathy Freeman Foundation aims to ensure that young Indigenous Australians have the same opportunities and education as other young Australians.

The 2005 Australian Bureau of Statistics Report ‘The Health and Welfare of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ found a strong correlation between Aboriginal education, employment, and health. This supports the Foundation’s focus on education as a crucial intervention point.

The Foundation works with the Palm Island community, one of Australia’s largest Indigenous communities and the birthplace of Cathy Freeman’s mother and grandparents. The island population of about 3,800 includes approximately 1,000 school-aged Indigenous children. Challenges faced by the community include unemployment, poor literacy, truancy, and low graduation rates.

The Cathy Freeman Foundation believes that by working with the community and key partners to improve educational opportunities and outcomes, the problems within the Palm Island community can be overcome.

Funding from corporations, trusts, foundations, and donations are vital to the ongoing positive contributions by the Cathy Freeman Foundation to the Palm Island community.

By becoming a winning bidder on any of the Converse Blank Canvas Project shoes, your money will help the Foundation, and in turn the residents of Palm Island, to continue to close the education gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian children.

You can read more about the Cathy Freeman Foundation at the website  - http://www.cathyfreemanfoundation.org.au/.