MSS 2025 Scholarship for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women

Missionary Sisters of Service 2025 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Women’s Scholarship

In order to promote the dignity and role of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in the church and society. the 2025 Missionary Sisters of Service Scholarship will support postgraduate coursework study in theology.

The Missionary Sisters of Service (MSS) story is a uniquely Australian narrative. The MSS acknowledge as the founder Fr John Corcoran Wallis, a pastoral and visionary priest of the Archdiocese of Hobart, Tasmania. They also acknowledge the courage and faithfulness of the first four MSS women who came together in Launceston on 8 July 1944, Alice Carroll, Gwen Morse, Kathleen Moore and Joyce O’Brien.

Over the past 80 years since our foundation, MSS have connected with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities throughout Australia in areas where we have lived and worked, in parts of Queensland, western New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia.  Connections have continued through the entity set up by MSS 14 years ago – Highways and Byways, especially through the Seeds of Connection program which has been led by a young Indigenous woman in Roma, Qld, as well as through the H&B Small Grants Program.  MSS have also joined Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in different campaigns for justice and self-determination.

The vision of the Missionary Sisters of Service has been lived out with a growing knowledge and awareness that the MSS came into being in ancient lands where Indigenous peoples have lived for 65,000 years or more, a land rich in spirituality and cultures living in harmony with creation. We wish always to acknowledge and honour the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We recognise that, through working towards understanding the spiritual relationship between the land and its First Peoples, we will remain committed to their invitation to walk with them in the journey of voice, treaty and truth telling.

The scholarship fully covers the recipient’s tuition fees for postgraduate coursework study at the University of Divinity and provides an annual living allowance ($10,000 for full-time study or $5,000 for part-time study). The scholarship is available for either full-time or part-time study.

Criteria

1. This scholarship is for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman candidate.
2. The candidate must be eligible for admission to a postgraduate coursework award at the University of Divinity.
3. Preference may be given to a candidate who is enrolling through Yarra Theological Union or Catholic Theological College.

How to apply

Please complete the (online) scholarship application form available below. 

Applications close on Friday 20 December.

In addition to the application form details, applicants must submit:

• Confirmation of Identity/Letter from Elder or Respected person
• A statement of up to 500 words to help the Committee learn about you and your community, the postgraduate study you would like to undertake, how that study will help your community, your family and you. We would also like to know how the MSS Scholarships will help you and your family with your studies.

Further information

Selection of the scholarship recipient is decided by the Missionary Sisters of Service Scholarship Committee and short-listed applicants may be requested to attend an interview.

At the conclusion of the scholarship term, the scholarship holder is required to provide a reflection that seeks to encourage other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women to undertake postgraduate study. An invitation will be extended to the recipient and their family to meet with the Missionary Sisters of Service.

About the Missionary Sisters of Service

The Missionary Sisters of Service (MSS) is a Roman Catholic religious congregation founded in 1944, in Tasmania, by Father John Corcoran Wallis, who had discerned an unmet need for pastoral support in Australia’s rural and isolated areas. Since that time, MSS sisters have served and supported communities around Australia expressing their call to mission to be with people and the whole of creation in the ordinary everyday of life. They have carried out this mission in myriad ways. With most of the sisters now at retirement age, the MSS continues its outreach to those experiencing disadvantage, inequality or isolation through its Highways and Byways agency, which awards small grants and establishes longer-term partnerships designed to strengthen community relationships and networks, develop local leadership, and empower people to meet the challenges confronting them, in a spirit of “healing the land, healing ourselves, together”.