A nasty sporting injury has helped Columba College head girl Holly Cadzow win a leadership scholarship.
The 18-year-old is one of six New Zealand high school pupils to be awarded a $2500 2012 Arrow Foundation leadership scholarship.
"I was really pleased and surprised," Holly said yesterday.
"It's very competitive and I mainly applied for it because I thought it would be good for me to go through the process, as experience for future job interviews."
The talented sportswoman has represented New Zealand and the South Island at basketball and Otago at basketball, netball and water polo.
The award cited Holly's leadership qualities and initiative, such as her dedication to her sports teams while recovering from an anterior cruciate ligament injury during a netball game in June last year.
"It took me 14 months and two surgeries to recover, so I spent the time helping coach and mentoring the younger players."
Holly also introduced a mentoring system at Columba College, to help bring pupils closer together.
"As head girl, I wanted to do something to strengthen the relationships between the older girls and the younger girls, so I decided to help implement a new vertical grouping system where years 13 to 7 meet once a month and hang out and get to know each other. So the younger girl have got a network outside their own peer level. It gives it that small-school feel back."
Holly has plans for her $2500 prize money and they do not include a shopping spree.
"I'm doing first-year health science next year and hope to get into medicine. So I'll be putting the money straight into my education. I'd really love to do something with medicine and sport one day."
