Yalari Annual Review 2020
BROOKE MASSENDER Yalari Supporter "I believe strongly in the transformative power of education and the innate talent and unrealised potential of First Nations peoples. Yalari brings both of these together with a spirit of positivity and fun."
While attending a Freehills Foundation pro bono lunch event in 2006, Brooke was introduced to Waverley and the Yalari story. A lawyer for international law firm Herbert Smith Freehills, Brooke was instantly struck by Waverley's vision, passion and sense of fun. But despite feeling an immediate connection to the cause, Brooke also felt a little reluctant. "I was slightly hesitant about the idea of taking young people away from their home communities," she explains. "But rather than back-off, I chose to lean in, learn more, and closely follow Yalari's organisational growth and impact on the students." In just a few short years, Herbert Smith Freehills and Yalari had developed a holistic relationship involving pro bono legal support, strategic
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guidance, business orientation days at HSF offices, tutoring programs, financial support and more.
"I thought that I was too working class and too 'northern' — that I stuck out like a sore thumb," she says.
Brooke, who grew up in the northeast of England in a small agricultural town with a low socio-economic profile, described herself as a "megageek" who couldn't wait to get away to a bigger city for more study at university.
It was then, Brooke decided to pack up and head to Australia to volunteer at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. She ended up working as a paralegal at Freehills (as HSF was known back then).
"I'd worked so hard to get there and was the first generation in our family to access a tertiary education. To begin with, I couldn't understand why the other students were partying all the time. They seemed to take the opportunity to study for granted. However, I quickly learned how to balance the two!" Following university, Brooke was offered a position in a major commercial law firm in London, but explains feeling like 'a fish out of water.'
"Before I knew it I had engaging work, and colleagues who genuinely seemed to judge me on my merit not my background. The rest is history," she says. Being the first in her family to finish high school, attend university, travel away from home and work in a corporate environment, gives Brooke a deep connection to the Yalari mission. "I have experienced the feeling of being unseen or unheard because of your background rather than your abilities. I am extremely aware of how
