Yvonne O'Neill doesn't see herself as a teacher, more a storyteller helping young people realise their strength they can pass on to future generations.

Representing both Australia and the Indigenous All Stars as a rugby league player, the Yuwaalaraay, Noongahburrah, and Murrawarri woman is an artist, shares culture with students at TAFE NSW and works with incarcerated Indigenous people across the state "helping them tell their story".

Growing up in Goodooga, on Gomeroi Country in north-central NSW, she grew up being taught "who I am as an Aboriginal woman and what I'm supposed to do", in what she calls an "as traditional as possible" childhood led by generations of strong women in her family.

She recounted "everything was learning" growing up.

Ms O'Neill began painting more than 25 years ago, she told National Indigenous Times.

Her father, well-known and much respected artist Tex Skuthorpe, was passed down stories from his grandmother.

Art wasn't something she naturally excelled in, at least in the later years of high school on Sydney's Northern Beaches.

"I was pretty hopeless when I was in school, but I was still creative, but it sort of came to me," she said.

"I think I needed to grow a little bit in who I was and understand my purpose. And now I live that every day."

At 16, after moving away from home to Allambie Heights in Sydney, an ad in the paper led her to join North Sydney Bears and carve an elite career in football, hanging up the boots in 2011.

Ms O'Neill first played with Goodooga Magpies back home.

In 2010, while working as head of Indigenous Education at St Joseph's Nudgee College in Boondall, she was approached to create what became 'Pilgrimage' artwork for Mary MacKillop's cannonisation which continues to hang in the Vatican.

Now, Ms O'Neill is a cultural arts teacher with TAFE NSW Eora in Darlington, having taken part in a fast-track accreditation program targeted to industry professionals called Paid to Learn.

It allowed her to enter the vocational education sector.

Close to 20 per cent of the current program cohort identify as Indigenous.

For Ms O'Neill, "the more people who can do this program and pass on their knowledge, the better".

After working in teaching for so long, she's doing it for the next generation, she said.

As a footballer, "rugby league gave me the strength to stand up and have a voice" and brought out the "cultural leader or cultural storyteller" in her.

She uses this to help young people "who are paving the way for the next generation" find their story.

Ms O'Neill also works with Aboriginal people in prisons, primarily men, doing the same - putting their story together in art.

TAFE NSW Eora Creative and Cultural Arts head teacher Elizabeth (Murrah) Keys, said Ms O'Neill "is an incredibly inspiring teacher who connects deeply with her students".

"Her real-world experience, from sport to education to the arts, enriches every lesson she delivers," Murrah said, adding Ms O'Neill "embodies" the Paid to Learn program "bringing industry talent into teaching to change lives".

Ms O'Neill said: "Everyone's got a purpose in keeping our culture alive, and mine is painting."

"I'm not a teacher. I'm a storyteller. You know, that's what I tell people," she said.

"It's so important that Aboriginal people go back to being the storyteller of their journey, instead of letting someone else tell who we are.

"I know who I am because of my grandparents, my mum and my dad…they made sure that we knew how to tell our story."

She said everything she does now is with her parents "who worked so hard to get us kids to where we are today" in mind.