Meet Seynab

Seynab came to Australia from Somalia when she was just nine years old. Her mother passed away, so she and her seven siblings came to live with their grandmother in Brisbane. Coming to a new country with a new language was daunting enough, let alone fitting into a whole new schooling system. While Seynab’s grandmother gave her so much support, she didn’t speak English either, and had never had a formal education, so it was hard to know what to expect. But Seynab learned quickly, she picked up the language and was – in her own words – a ‘very studious’ pupil.

The Smith Family came into Seynab’s life when she was in high school. This support helped her grandmother buy uniforms, books, and stationery, but for Seynab the biggest impact on her life was the charity’s Learning Clubs. Seynab looked forward to these weekly after-school homework clubs. She would do her assignments with the help of a tutor and enjoyed getting to meet up with other students from the area.

Seynab was always good at science and loved to help people, so she decided nursing was the perfect career for her. She got into QUT and was supported for the duration of her studies through The Smith Family’s Tertiary Scholarship, which helped her buy things like textbooks and a laptop. In the final years of her degree, she was paired with a mentor who was also a nurse. This gave her real insights into the profession and allowed her to grow in her career.

Seynab is now a registered nurse at the Mater hospital in Brisbane, a job that gives her purpose, and one that she loves.