Rich Hart Scholarship for Refugee Students

This has indeed been a surreal and challenging year in so many ways for all of us.  At the end of 2019, my most beautiful mother passed away.  So on top of everything else that’s going on in the world, I have been spending a lot more time reflecting on my parents and what it must have meant to have had to leave Uganda to start a new life in a new country.  They faced enormous challenges and their immense strength in facing these challenges is really an inspiration to me.  I am trying to focus on their strength as we face the many challenges this pandemic has presented us with.

Our supporters are also such an inspiration.  During 2019 we confirmed our second Rich Hart Scholarship with Caulfield Grammar School for a refugee student.  The beautiful young lady commenced at CGS at the beginning of 2020.  I met her and her parents last year and their enthusiasm and genuine gratitude was so humbling.  The opportunity that we are able to provide will make a positive impact on these young students and their families and the families of the CGS community.

With so many experiencing difficulties during this Covid pandemic, I feel so blessed that we can make a difference to at least two families!  

Thankyou to those who support us.  Please know that especially at this time, and despite the challenges that you may be facing, you are making an immense difference.

Fem Hunter

Co Founder - Rich Hart Foundation

Rich Hart Scholarship for Refugees

I am so honoured to be writing this blog.  After my father passed away in 2016, we decided to work on our very first project.

Dad always taught my sister and I that hard work, an education and being kind and generous whenever you can, were paramount to his life. It is what enabled my parents to give us a fresh start and new opportunities in Australia. 

After dad passed away, we decided that we wanted to give other refugees the chance to have the same learning and educational opportunities that I was blessed to have.  We therefore embarked on a project to raise funds to provide a refugee student  with a scholarship to be educated at Caulfield Grammar School (CGS).

We worked with the school throughout 2018 and through the incredible generosity of the people that agreed to support our Foundation, we are so proud to be providing the Rich Hart Scholarship as a legacy to my father, for a young boy who commenced at CGS at the beginning of 2019. This is the first refugee scholarship (of hopefully many!) at the school.

We are now working on raising funds to grow in this area and to continue to provide more refugees with these educational opportunities.

This will help us as individuals and as a community, to be more compassionate, more openminded, and more understanding of others beliefs and values.  Surely this will enrich us all.

Thank you again to those of you who support us.  We are immensely grateful.

Fem Hunter

Co Founder -  Rich Hart Foundation

Fem's first Blog

Welcome to the Rich Hart Foundation and my inaugural blog

We are a small family foundation with an ambitious vision to make a measurable difference to the lives of refugees, women and children.

We set up the Foundation in 2013 and decided to develop a website so that we can start to communicate, share and learn from others.

I was born in Uganda and in the early 1970’s was forced to escape the country as a result of Idi Amin’s regime.  I arrived in Melbourne as a young child with my mother, father and sister.  We arrived with no possessions, no friends and no extended family or community support.

It was through the tenacity and hard work of my parents and through the kindness and generosity of people that we met in Melbourne, that gave us hope, and the opportunity to start a new life.

We set up the Foundation because we want to give others the hope and chance for an opportunity to have a better life.  Whether that is by supporting refugees, supporting women and children, or providing educational opportunities to those in need.

We hope that we can make a meaningful difference, always mindful of our core values of diversity, acceptance, leadership and opportunity.

Fem Hunter

Chair - Rich Hart Foundation