We are delighted to announce that Prince’s Trust Australia Get Into Maritime graduate Tayla Green-Aldridge will attend the Coronation of His Majesty The King at Westminster Abbey in London.
Eighteen-year-old Tayla is a proud Wiradjuri and Yuin woman, and will travel to London with her mother, Julieanne.
Tayla will attend along with Prince’s Trust Australia chair, the Hon Julie Bishop who said,
“I am honoured to be invited to the Coronation and delighted that the Prince’s Trust Australia has received such recognition.
“It is also fitting that Tayla, an impressive young Indigenous woman who has benefited from a Prince’s Trust Australia program, will be included among the guests at Westminster Abbey.
Get into Maritime is a hands-on course is held on the lighthouse keeper ship, the MVCape Don, berthed at Waverton. Young First Nations students receive certification to begin their careers in the maritime industry. Taught by TAFE NSW and organised by the SeaHeritage Foundation, it is the first of its kind.
All seven graduates of the first course have gone onto future training or work.
Tayla says, ‘I can’t compare going to the Coronation to anything I’ve experiencedbefore. Obviously, I think I’ll be nervous, but it will be an honour to just bethere in the presence of something that’s been going on for centuries.
‘I am actually going to be part of history. It still feels unreal, like it’s not happening to me.
‘This is my first time on a plane and my first time out of Australia. And my mum,who is coming with me, has only been on a plane once to the Gold Coast.”
On the Get into Maritime course, Tayla says, ‘I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with my life. I had been the first female in my family to go to university, but it wasn’t 100 per cent right for me.
‘I was really shy when I started the Maritime course, but I liked how welcoming everyone was, and how they told me I didn’t have to stress – that we were all in this together.
‘I really liked how practical it all was – like tying knots, that’s one of the essentials in working on a boat, you have to tie off when you moor. I really liked that because it was kind of like a puzzle.
“Prince’s Trust made me feel like I could do anything I wanted to.”
Her family will wave her off at the airport, and she says the most excited is her Pop, Harold Green.
‘My Pop is the most excited, I think. He keeps telling all our relatives that I’m going to meet the King. He is really proud, and so is all my other family.”
