piers van der heide

An Equity-First Students as Partners Podcast. Student Stories in Higher Education.

The blue RSPCA op-shop sign is a beacon to bargain-hunting shoppers in the eastern Melbourne suburb of Burwood. Inside, fashionable teenagers stand alongside curious elderly citizens, rummaging through clothes racks.  The store has been here for more than 25 years, and business is better than ever.  
“The times are changing and they’re changing a lot, and we’ve just gotta keep up with it” the shop’s manager Patricia Yong says. 
According to the St Vincent De Paul 2022-2023 annual report, thrifti...

"Every chess master was once a beginner" - Irving Chernov

A grade 4 age British chess player, Bodhana Sivanandan, has beaten Peter Wells, a chessmaster with a 50 year age difference at the 2025 British Chess Championships in Liverpool.

Five-time Oceania women's chess champion Irina Berezina spoke to Brigitte Duclos on ABC Radio Melbourne Afternoons about how such a feat is even possible.

The LGBTQIA+ community has been buoyed by the success of a recent protest, despite neo-Nazi’s also attending the rally.On March 18, anti-transgender activist Posie Parker took her tour across Australia to the steps of Victoria’s Parliament House, and was greeted with a rivalling LGBTQIA+ protest, as well as a group of Neo-Nazi’s supporting Parker.  
Despite the concern of seeing Neo-Nazi’s protesting against them, the LGBTQIA+ community has drawn strength from the knowledge that there’s people f...