I came from a family involved in community arts. I studied Economics at University. I wanted to better understand the relationships between poverty and inequality. At uni, I also became involved in student politics, particularly in asylum seeker issues. I paid my way through uni through the usual ways – working in cafes and the like, but it was working in an inner-city childcare centre, and exposure to the issues faced by these families, that was really formative. I got a scholarship to attend summer school at a university in Jerusalem. From there, I travelled further in the Middle East, exploring and reflecting on what I had studied at university.

Returning to Australia, I started working as a Multicultural Youth Policy Officer at a Migrant Resource Centre. I worked a lot with lots of different organisations to help address issues experienced by young people from refugee and migrant backgrounds. I stayed there for three years before I travelled overseas to work for a human rights organisation in Southeast Asia. After a few years there, I came home to help my dad look after my mum after she was diagnosed with cancer.

I’ve come back to work in the same organisation that I left in a new role.  We provide intensive support to refugee families that are struggling to make their new life work. Sometimes this is because their experiences before here were so traumatic that they need extra help, other times it’s  because something has happened here – illness, family breakdown, racist attacks – has happened to them and they don’t know how to get help in the new system.

I have a great life, a great girlfriend, and I love my work. Even though I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night worrying if one of my clients is going to make it through. I am still living in share accommodation though, and I know that if I’d taken a different path – public service, international work – the same work I’m doing here in a community that I love, would be given a different dollar value.