(Article originally published on the Daily Telegraph in Australia on September 9, 2025, Daily Telegraph

Luiz flees favela to take up scholarship at Sydney Uni

EXCLUSIVE — Eilidh Sproul-Mellis

Caption (main photo): University of Sydney scholarship student Luiz Augusto Duarte de Araújo avoided the life of crime many of his friends in Rio succumbed to and is now continuing his education in Australia. Picture: Tim Hunter.

The last time Luiz Augusto Duarte de Araújo saw his childhood best friend Rickson, the pair were celebrating New Year’s Eve in Rio de Janeiro, and Luiz was urging the young gangster to flee cartel life before it was too late.

“I said to him, ‘get out of this life — you are a smart guy, you don’t need to be in the place you are’,” the 24-year-old graphic designer said.

Rickson had been scanning the area, on the lookout for cops. “I said ‘quit it … your mum needs you, your family needs you’. He was like ‘Oh I just need some money, I will get out soon’, but this day never arrived.”

A month later, his friend was dead, gunned down in a shootout with police.

Now, the first Brazilian to earn a full scholarship to the University of Sydney, the postgraduate international student is spending his time outside class kicking around a futebol with peers at the prestigious St Paul’s College, alma mater of the likes of Gough Whitlam.

His new digs at the university’s oldest college are a far cry from Pavão-Pavãozinho, the impoverished favela where he grew up in southern Rio.

In an emotive interview, Luiz — who is studying a Master of Interaction Design and Electronic Arts — revealed the heart of his “mission” in Sydney.

“Maybe I can be the person who will open this door, to people from my community.”
— Luiz Augusto Duarte de Araújo, Brazilian scholarship holder

Against all odds, Luiz “grew up happy,” he said, his adolescence and young adulthood taking a trajectory entirely unlike the friends he once played soccer with in the streets.

He credits this fortunate life to the single mum who raised him, sheltering him from the worst of the violence and poverty in his community.

While his mum Antonia worked long hours to earn enough money to keep Luiz well fed, his godmother Dilza took him into her home.

Antonia fought long and hard for her son to be enrolled in the highly sought-after philanthropic school Solar, where the school day lasts more than 10 hours and students spend their afternoons doing sport, learning a musical instrument or playing capoeira under supervision.

“I was a lucky guy — if this place didn’t exist, I don’t know where I would end up,” Luiz said.

Getting a good education is not easy in Rio’s public school system. Most schools dismiss students at midday, often leaving young people to their own devices for hours.

“In the place I grew up, it is really hard to thrive — to manage to have a good job, to gather money, to build a family and a great house.

“Crime seems to be the perfect path … and almost all my friends were attracted by this trap.”

He would later learn that Rickson was not the only childhood friend to have paid the ultimate price for getting mixed up in organised crime.

Luiz, meanwhile, became the first in his family to attend university, earning a scholarship to Brazil’s top-ranked private institution PUC-Rio.

Receiving his acceptance letter for a journalism degree was “one of the best days of my mum’s life,” Luiz said.

He landed a job at TV Globo, the largest television network in Latin America, and while a career in journalism never worked out — a creative at heart, Luiz found greater joy in graphic design — the role gave Antonia immense pride. “For my family — especially my mum — to see her child working in a place like that, it was a big deal,” he said.

Then came the most extraordinary offer yet — EduMais, Solar’s partner charity, wanted to nominate Luiz for a $150,000-per-year International Equity Scholarship at the University of Sydney, on the other side of the world.

“I was like, ‘you said Australia?’ and she said ‘yes, Australia’,” Luiz recalled. “I didn’t think twice.”

All but confirming the stereotypes, one of his first priorities upon arriving in Sydney was to join St Paul’s soccer team. “As a Brazilian, I have to play to live,” he said.

Caption (small photos): Luiz (third from left) with friends in the Pavão-Pavãozinho favela in Rio, overlooking the city and (far right) at his school Solar.