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Susannah: I grew up in a very small town, population of about 3000 people.
Even though I don't look indigenous - most people will say I don't look indigenous -everybody knew.
And it didn't really affect my schooling as much as it might for other people.
Dean: It was tough being an Aboriginal student in school.
At times people would say things to you that weren't very nice and, you had to change people's opinion and stuff.
But that's something that I had to prove that Aboriginal people do work hard and are smart.
Alan: So I think at the end of year 10, a lot of my cousins, a lot of my family, all my friends were dropping out of school and going to
work or just going on Centrelink ... There's no one in my mother's family ... had actually gone on to university, let alone year 12.
So I think it gave me a bit of a drive.
Joel: There were so many negative influences growing up as a teenager by other people on who I was you know, so from there I
decided yeah I'm going to get more education and, instead of stealing their money as they think I am all the time, I'm going to steal their jobs.
Kyas: I don't think I had an option.
I had my mum and my dad and my aunties and my cousins: 'You go to school and you finish your HSC', that's it.
Fiona: I decided to finish my HSC mainly because I did not want to be a statistic.
I did not want to be one of those Aboriginal students that dropped out.
Susannah: I thought 'just stick it out and see what happens'.
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Joel: Got really successful, I guess.
One of the groups was 'Local Knowledge'.
I had no idea what I wanted to do; I just knew you had to stay in school.
Dean: There's going to be a lot of things that go wrong with life but keep trying and keep finding ways to get the best out of yourself and challenge yourself.
Kyas: You know you're going to watch this show and you're going to see all these blackfellas who are doing it, we're living, we're working, you know, and we're happy.
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