John-Vincent Maxwell

John-Vincent was Head Boy at Papamoa College, and has a passion for fashion! He has also achieved excellence in drama, and won the Gold Award for Community Service this year.

He’s from quite a traditional background, so the Trust was particularly impressed with his bold decision to out himself to the entire school during his end of year speech as Head Boy – that’s style!

John-Vincent has a talent for public speaking, he was selected for semi-finals in his region, and debated in the Youth UN Summit. He was involved in the school’s Gay Straight Alliance group (of course) and organised their first Pink Shirt Day. In addition he helped create their first ever school PRIDE week, ensuring the initiative was self-funding AND raised some money for Rainbow YOUTH.

Scholarship decisions are never easy – there are so many fabulous applications from so many amazing LGBTQI+ high-school students heading into their first year at Uni. John-Vincent will be starting at Auckland University in the new year, with a double course in Global Studies and TESOL.

He’s been working in retail part-time (fashion of course!) while at high-school and hopes to get a transfer to the Auckland store so he’s self-sufficient. And in his “spare time”, he’s eager to get very involved with the LGBTQI+ community in Auckland.