Megan Blacklow is the No-Interest Loan Scheme(NILS) co-ordinator at the Port Douglas Neighbourhood Centre and was awarded the Gavan Podbury Award for NILS excellence in June. 

The No Interest Loan Scheme is available to local residents in receipt of  Centrelink payments and provides them, as the title suggests, with an interest-free loan to purchase basic household essentials such as refrigerators, washing machines or car repairs. 

The loans are derived from $70,000 of seed funding from the National Australia Bank and are paid back over time through the recipient’s Centrelink payments. 

Ms Blacklow was awarded the Gavan Podbury Award, named for the first NILS worker when the program started 32 years ago, for her work in providing no-interest loans to the Mossman Indigenous community. 

She had recognised that residents were signing up to high-interest loans for purchases from an unconscionable salesperson and had offered NILS as an alternative, travelling to the Mossman Community Centre and Mossman Gorge Community regularly. 

Now 90 per cent of the NILS clients in the Douglas area are members of the Indigenous community. 

Ms Blacklow said she was ‘incredibly proud’ to receive the award but said the NILS program itself deserved the credit. 

“It’s about reaching out to people that are struggling financially and helping them,” she said. 

“If you’re on Centrelink and you’re fridge breaks down, then you’re in a bit of trouble because you don’t always have the savings to replace it - the NILS program handles everything for you and it makes it simple to pay it all back over time without getting trapped and going into debt. 

“Usually we’ll have someone finish paying off their NILS loan and go straight onto another one, and so what’s happening is they’re actually getting a chance to accumulate assets - they end up with new furniture, energy efficient whitegoods, and all the household items that others may take for granted.”

No-interest loans are only available to people that have lived in the community for more than six months, are on Centrelink payments and need the loan for an essential household item. 

Ms Blacklow said the centre has provided over $400,000 in no-interest loans to the community, meaning the original seed funding has been cycled through about five times since the Douglas program started in 2009. 

She said that she can ‘count on one hand’ the people that have failed to pay back the loan.

Ms Blacklow also received a call from Gavin Podbury himself to congratulate her on winning the award. 

He told her that 'the work her program is doing in the community is the very essence of why the NILS program was originally developed'.