Emma Drew

“My time at Yarra was a really diverse mix – a nice combination of people.”

In the past 20 years, Emma Drew estimates that she’s spent only about one of those years at home in Melbourne.

A working life that saw Emma initially work in the wool trade and then the shipping industry, eventually led to a lengthy career travelling throughout Africa as an aid worker.

Her professional journey has certainly taken Emma far from Yarra Valley Grammar, where she spent the final two years of her school life.

Emma joined at a time when girls were beginning to make an impact on the school.

“I am a bit of a tomboy so I played sports with the boys during lunch and recess. I tried to join the boy’s cricket team – that didn’t work out but some of the boys did advocate for me,” she recalls.

After graduating, Emma initially enrolled in an Arts degree at Bendigo University but left after her first year and began working while she figured out what came next.

“I was 17 when I graduated and making decisions about what I wanted to do for the rest of my life was daunting. I was still trying to understand who I was, let alone knowing who I was going to be,” she says.

After working in logistics for several years, Emma went through a ‘soul searching’ phase and decided she wanted to become an aid worker. After rejection from an aid agency because of her lack of field experience, Emma sold her car, emptied her savings account and went to Kenya.

“I thought I’d create my own field experience. I had no connections and I knocked on doors for three months until an Italian medical NGO took me on as a volunteer. I helped move medicines, food, medical equipment and hospital beds to South Sudan and spent nine years there. It’s a country that is closest to my heart.”

Emma has taken on a series of increasingly senior logistical and management roles with organisations such as Save the Children, Oxfam and Unicef. Her deep understanding of South Sudan saw Emma deliver a speech to the UN Security Council in New York about the trajectory of the conflict in the country.

In October 2022, she decided to return to Melbourne and now works for the Global Evergreening Alliance, looking after the Africa portfolio.

“I’ve been drawn to doing things that are outside the box – not typical day-to-day stuff but now I want to spend time with my family and I’ve bought a home,” she says.

“But, as the school motto suggests, I think it’s important to look above and beyond and to expand your world view.”