An ordinary Be the change

person doing
extraordinary
you want to see
things …
in the world
Mahatma Gandhi

“She never made a big deal of it. She just

helped people – that’s what she did.”
Cate Humby-Hoff, Friend

“If Lisa is going to touch people she has to

be seen as she was. She was human.”
Pauline Malone, Lisa’s mother

“Lisa contributed absolutely everything, she

made a great sacrifice.”
Professor Nancy Millis, Chancellor LISA
La Trobe University
MALONE
Lisa’s Legacy
Lisa Malone Scholarship Global citizen
La Trobe University, Albury-Wodonga
Malone Community
Catholic College Wodonga
“She saw us as the lucky country and wanted to
go and help in other parts of the world.”
Lisa’s former teacher, John McEvoy
When Lisa Malone was a student at Catholic College
Wodonga (CCW) fellow students, friends and teachers
remember her as a person who always helped.
After her death in a helicopter crash in Guatemala on
March 18 1998, a fellow student from CCW wrote:
“There was no specific time that she started helping others.
To be around her was to be changed for the better, to be
touched by her strength and the depth of her compassion.”
Lisa was well known for her enquiring mind and care, but
equally for her forthrightness and determination to make
change not only in her immediate world but in the world
beyond Wodonga.
After successfully completing her VCE in 1987, Lisa was
accepted into Melbourne University, completing one year
before transferring to Adelaide to complete her degree.
While in Adelaide she did voluntary work with street kids
and homeless people. On her return to Melbourne she went
back to study at Melbourne University and enrolled in a two
year post graduate Bachelor of Social Work.
During this time Lisa also worked as a live in carer for
homeless and disadvantaged people with Melbourne City
Mission.
Lisa completed 18 months of the course before deciding to
travel to Central America, where she lived in the northern
Guatemalan jungle.
After learning basic Spanish she taught the language in
a mission orphanage later moving to southern Mexico to
teach English. Her students included soldiers from the
military and also guerillas. She then moved to El Salvador
and worked for an international women’s group working to
improve life for sex workers.
Lisa returned to Australia and spent some time working in
Alice Springs with Indigenous people who had disabilities.
She also completed her Social Work Degree at La Trobe
University. Her relationship with La Trobe was to prove an
enduring one with the establishment of a scholarship in her
name after her death.
Lisa returned to Guatemala in January 1998 as guide to a
small Community Aid Abroad group. After this tour and a
short break, Lisa fulfilled a dream and worked as an
Education and Human Rights Officer with the United
Nations Volunteer Group in Huehuetenango, Guatemala.
Just six weeks later she was on board a large military
helicopter when it crashed in a remote part of western
Guatemala.
Her casket was returned to Australia accompanied by a
UN volunteer from Geneva. Guatemalan President, Alvaro
Arzu presented Lisa and her colleagues with the
Guatemalan Peace Prize.
As much as her family, friends and colleagues remember
her good works, they also remember her messiness and
that she was no angel – she was simply human with
everything that goes with that…and a laugh that would
rival any kookaburra call.
Some were concerned about her losing her
‘Australianness’, but it seemed Lisa was destined to know a
greater world and to be a global citizen.