Yellow Rock uni student making a difference in developing countries

Mr Taccori was one of 70 2015 New Colombo Plan scholarship recipients, which has barely seen him on Australian soil the past year.

The scholarship is for young Australian university students to undertake semester-based study and internships in the Indo-Pacific. 

Mr Taccori was leading a food security project in India for the business collective 40K whose aim is to make a difference, when he heard of his scholarship success.

Currently studying a Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Wollongong, Mr Taccori has a desire to help people, particularly those in developing countries who have so little, and figured getting nutrition right was a good place to start.

“To me it was a lucky dip. I could have been in a slum in Deli. I have a fantastic family and so many opportunities. It’s my responsibility to make use of that the best way to use my skills,” Mr Taccori said.

 “For me, nutrition, food and health has to be number one. This is my passion and focus.”

That passion has taken the former St Columba’s College student to Fiji for one semester to study at the University of the South Pacific. Here he gained an internship at the National Food and Nutrition Centre at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva shadowing a team of dieticians.

He’d see cases where diabetes had progressed so far, leading to amputation or blindness.

Then he was on to Kiribati, a small chain of islands and one of the least developed countries in the Pacific. 

On an internship with the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security, which is associated with a research arm at the University of Wollongong, Mr Taccori conducted a food security survey in Betio, one of the most densely populated areas of Kiribati.

“In one hut you would have 20 people … with 35-40 degree temperatures and inside the hut was even hotter,” Mr Taccori said.

He observed the people were moving away from more traditional foods they could source themselves like breadfruit and fish, towards packet noodles and bags of rice, a factor in Kiribati being one of the most obese nations in the world.

Next was a backpacking adventure in Vietnam, then onto Bangkok to do a five-month  “dream internship” with the United Nations, working on their world food program.

Mr Taccori turned up to work in a suit, but lived out of a hostel, and was the first intern the organisation had seen at their regional Asian bureau in several years.

He joined the nutrition team, describing himself as a “human sponge” soaking up every piece of information he could. 

One of the projects he was involved in was complementary feeding – when breastmilk alone is not enough to meet an infant’s nutritional requirements and foods are introduced. When he was invited to attend a global nutrition conference hosted by Unicef on complementary feeding, he couldn’t have been more excited.

Back in Australia, Mr Taccori is keen to finish off his remaining 1.5 years of his degree, fitting in more overseas internships between semesters, but sees himself working internationally when his studies are complete.