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An Arts/Law Fogarty scholar from The University of Western Australia who is undertaking a major in Chinese has won one of 20 national undergraduate prizes in the Prime Minister's Australia Asia Endeavour Awards.

Thomas Williams, 21, of Morley received a scholarship of more than $40,000 to spend from six months to a year in Asia as part of his degree, followed by an internship or work placement in Asia.  He is currently studying Diplomacy in China as part of a Chinese Government Scholarship at the Renmin University of China and will take up the Endeavour Award in March next year.

The scholarship tops a highly successful year for Thomas, who came third overall in a global contest for students of Mandarin to prove their expertise in general knowledge and cultural understanding as well as the spoken word.

Thomas is a third year student in the Chinese program in Asian Studies.  Mr Liyong Wang, a language lecturer in Asian Studies and coordinator of the Chinese language program at UWA's Confucius Institute, dubbed Thomas, and another winning student, Andrew Chubb of Northbridge, his ‘golden boys' on hearing they had performed so well in the so-called China Bridge competition.

Thomas was also chosen as Australia's sole representative at the 2010 Nkabom Commonwealth Youth Leadership Program held in Kigali, Rwanda, in September.

Most recently, he and a fellow student, Yamond Chester-Wallis, won second prize in a national film-making competition organised by Oxford University Press.

Thomas works as a part-time legal research clerk at Lavan Legal.  He is Youth Premier for this year's Western Australian Youth Parliament and was previously Youth Health Minister.  He is this year's Vice-President of the Fogarty Scholars' Association and part of an international task force developing a training program for youth advocacy and community leadership development to be held in Vanuatu in May next year.

Media references

Thomas Williams (+61 4) 19 235 560
Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 5563  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716