What are the Emily Campbell Scholarships? The scholarships are an offering to each of our 17 partner schools, each year. Each school selects one of their students who for financial reasons may not otherwise consider our speech and drama lessons, to participate in a full year of our programme (worth approx. $900), for free. Who was Emily Campbell? The scholarships are named after one of our incredible teachers, who we sadly lost in 2020. Emily was one of the most amazingly talented actors, musicians and teachers you could ever imagine. A woman of many talents; whether as a captivating actor or as a mesmerising violinist, she was destined to become a star in whatever she chose to pursue. She absolutely loved children. And they adored her. Perhaps the only thing that Emily was more natural at than entertaining people, was being a friend to people. One of the most caring, present, empathic and funny friends you could ever hope to have. Naming these scholarships after is our small way to honour Emily every year.

Over the years we have sought out partnerships with lower decile schools, to offer the benefits of speech and drama to children who may not typically be the benefactors of such opportunities. In offering our programmes free of charge to these partner schools, we offer students the chance to build confidence; confidence to communicate in a meaningful way with others, confidence to perform, and confidence to be yourself. These are lessons we want as many NZ children as possible to experience, regardless of socio-economic position. We estimate we the number of children who have benefited from these programmes to be in the hundreds, something we are very proud of.