MCWH Finance and Admin Officer and aspiring biographer
What are you enjoying doing at the moment?
Reading. I’m usually busy with work, studying and family commitments but I always like to read. A friend suggested the four-series Neapolitan novels of Elena Ferrante and I haven’t been able to put them down since I started reading the first book.
What is the best thing that happened to you today?
I woke up in nice warm house, in a peaceful country, my family safe and sound – not just the best thing, but also a blessing.
If you were a super-heroine, what powers would you like to have?
To be able to provide peace and health to everyone. Both are easily taken for granted when you have both and it’s easy to forget just how important they are for everyone, and not just for one section of the community or certain parts of the world.
What talent would you most like to possess?
Writing. I’d love to be able to write-up as many stories about women’s lives as I can!
What is your best quality or attribute?
Patience and resilience. I’ve found them very useful at various times in my life.
What is the best part of your day?
Definitely the morning: a time of promise of all the good things to come on the day.
If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?
Having escaped a war and experiencing first-hand the impacts of human rights violations on a global scale, I would want to be an international human rights lawyer.
What do you most value in your friends?
Ethics and moral principles.
If you could give one piece of advice to someone new to Australia, what would it be?
Embrace the experience and enjoy new things.
What’s your favourite word in the English language? Why?
It’s not a word, but the phrase ‘give it a go’, because it encompasses taking opportunities, and it also conveys the trying, adjusting and persisting as well.
What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced as a woman from an immigrant or refugee background?
Keeping positive even when it isn’t all smooth sailing. There have been many migrants before us who have experienced settlement, employment and all sorts of other issues that have come our way.
Can you describe a time when you felt discriminated against as a woman or as someone with an immigrant or refugee background?
When people speak to me differently because I speak English with an accent. On one occasion when I was looking through houses with my daughter, the real estate agent began apologising to me profusely and I had no idea why. I later found out from my daughter that she had told off the agent for speaking to me like a child just because I spoke with an accent and she told him that I was, in fact, an intelligent person.
For you, what’s the best thing about being a woman from an immigrant/refugee background?
Being part of two cultures and embracing both.
Tell me about an amazing woman you know.
I don’t even know where to start…my mother, my daughters, my colleagues, so many positive influences in my life. This is the tapestry of sisterhood: learning from one another and supporting each other.