Baring up for a good cause

A Blenheim vet student has bravely been photographed in her birthday suit to benefit rural mental health.

Ella Williams, 21, a third year student at Massey University is taking part in a long-standing tradition where students volunteer to be in the Barely There Calendar.

Five dollars from each sale goes to charity and the rest towards a celebration of reaching the halfway point of five years of study.

Ella says she had no hesitation in joining in the project, which features about 80 students in total.

“I guess it’s something that I will never have the opportunity to do again.

“It’s something unique and yes, a bit weird but I hope that one day and can look back at this bit of fun and say, ‘look what I did at uni.’ "

For almost 20 years now, vet school students show they are good sports by posing for the project.

Ella says she spent three hours posing for the project, with a group of five others.

Both sexes turned up trumps for the initiative, says Ella.

The photographer was good at putting them all at ease and snapped pictures at a trio of locations.

“I heard about the calendar when I was in my first year and it was just something that was a tradition.

“It seemed a bit scary at that moment,” she says.

But as Ella got to the halfway mark of her course, she discovered she was no longer that scared.

Charity Whatever with Wiggy will benefit from each $20 calendar sold. The remainder of funds help students benefit from a Half Way Day break.

“Altogether as a group we go to somewhere like Taupo and do an activity like white-water rafting,” Ella explains.

“It’s something fun to do, third year can be quite stressful.”

Ella says she had originally hoped to train as a police officer but Type 1 diabetes meant she had to rule that out on health grounds.

Helping out at a Seddon farm during the school holidays helped her discover her passion for animals and veterinary medicine, she says.

“There was a farm in Seddon and the farmer, Warwick Lissaman, took me out and showed around.

“A vet came out and was pregnancy scanning and I was like, yeah, this is something I’m interested in.”

Having first hand experience of working on a farm has made Ella especially aware of the challenges faced by some farmers.

“Working every day on your own is quite isolating so sending money to a charity that people can reach out for help from is important.”

To order a copy of the calendars visit: https://0461a6.myshopify.com/?mibextid=Zxz2cZ