Twenty-four-year-old Kiel Williams-Weigel, a teacher at Clontarf Aboriginal College, has been awarded NAIDOC Youth of the Year for 2011.
The National NAIDOC Committee received a flood of nominations from across the country. The award winners were honoured at the National NAIDOC Awards Ceremony and Ball in Sydney on Friday 8 July.
Kiel was born and raised in Brisbane and is a proud descendant of the Mununjali people of the Beaudesert region in Queensland.
After immersing himself in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, Kiel developed a strong desire for a better life for indigenous people in contemporary Australia.
He was the first in his family to attend university, graduating with a Bachelor of Education from Griffith University. He is now the Literacy Co-ordinator at Clontarf Aboriginal College in Western Australia and a sessional lecturer at the University of Notre Dame, where he helps other teachers understand the needs of indigenous school students.
Kiel is keen to undertake further study and hopes one day to be a principal of a Catholic Aboriginal school.