DATE & TIME
29 July 2022 | 9.30-15.45
VENUE
Wurdi Youang (Level 5)
Geelong Culture and Heritage Centre
The Dome
51 Little Malop Street, Geelong
This forum is brought to you by Track C Consulting in partnership with:
Welcome
As an advocate for Human Rights and a voice for creating change, Track C Consulting is proud to host forums and shine light on critical issues impacting the community.
In 2021, we held our inaugural Diversity & Inclusion forum hosting close to 60 representatives from various LGA’s, Victorian Government Department and not for profit organisations. Our remarkable guest speakers engaged the audience in a heart to heart conversation about the impact of exclusion, drawing from their lived experience and their tireless work in the community.
Racism, Raw & Real is the first forum of its kind in the Geelong region. With an outstanding lineup of speakers, this is a rare opportunity for you to engage in a meaningful dialogue about Racism with people who have lived it and continue to experience it everyday.
We invite you to open your hearts and listen to our wonderful speakers who have agreed to share their insights with us. We urge you to make a commitment to be an active voice in addressing systemic racism and decolonising your thinking and processes.
It’s time to yarn about Racism, openly and honestly.
We say enough is enough.
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About Track C
TRACK C CONSULTING, established in 2019 by Pirooz Jafari, is based on Wadawurrung Country.
Pirooz migrated to Australia in the late 1990’s. Upon successful completion of his law degree at the University of Wollongong, he pursued a career in law and worked in various community-based organisations in NSW before moving to Victoria where he worked at statutory bodies including various local governments and Victoria Legal Aid Commission.
Meanwhile, Pirooz undertook pro bono legal work at a number of community legal centres including Refugee Legal (formerly known as Refugee & Immigration Legal Centre) assisting with asylum seeker file preparation and client management. He then ran his own migration law practice for over 5 years specialising in asylum seeker and humanitarian cases. This experience enriched his understanding of people’s diverse voices and their experience of gross violation of human rights.
In December 2021, Pirooz was appointed as a member of the Victorian Multicultural Commission Regional Advisory Council, Barwon South West for a two-year term where he will have the platform to advocate for the issues that diverse communities of the region experience.
With over 20 years’ experience in the legal arena, community development, community engagement, project management, and policy development within the human rights framework, Pirooz is versatile and capable of taking on challenging projects. He is also a photographer, a writer and a story-teller, as such, has a unique set of skills and sensitivity to capture people’s stories and voices.
Pirooz’s debut novel Forty Nights is out in July 2022 by Ultimo Press.
Colonisation in Australia is not over.
Colonisation is a process, not an event – and the after-effects will continue while there are still people to remember it.
KEYNOTE
Claire Coleman
Acclaimed author of Lies, Damned Lies, The Old Lie and Terra Nullius
In Lies, Damned Lies, acclaimed author Claire, a proud Noongar woman, takes the reader on a journey through the past, present and future of Australia, lensed through her own experience. Beautifully written, this literary work blends the personal with the political, offering readers an insight into the stark reality of the ongoing trauma of Australia’s violent colonisation.
Claire will yarn with us about her journey writing this wonderful piece and her experience of colonisation. This is a rare opportunity to have such an intimate conversation with one of Australia’s most acclaimed and fierce writers.
BIO
Claire G. Coleman is a Noongar woman whose family have belonged to the south coast of Western Australia since long before history started being recorded. She writes fiction, essays, poetry and art writing while either living in Naarm (Melbourne) or on the road. During an extended circuit of the continent she wrote a novel, Terra Nullius, which won the black&write! Indigenous Writing Fellowship and was listed for 8 awards including a shortlisting for The Stella Prize. Lies, Damned Lies was published by Ultimo Press in 2021. Visit: www.ultimopress.com.au/liesdamnedlies for more information.
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Catherine Jonathan
Emerging Brand Africa
Catherine will give an account of her experiences as a professional and newly arrived migrant, at the height of the African gang crisis with a teenage son. She will explore how systemic racism played its role in job hunting, corporate Australia shut its doors for paid opportunities while widely opening volunteer opportunities in the name of gaining local experience. How the transition from a temporary visa holder with unlimited work rights, to a Permanent resident with no work is a joke! Finally, she will share the lessons that gave birth to Emerging Brand Africa in Australia!
BIO
Catherine Jonathan is a Bold Kenyan and a new Australian migrant. She is the Founder and CEO of Emerging Brand Africa (EmBA) Group. A Public Relations and Brand Communications Agency, that helps to amplify the visibility of African Australian people and businesses through strategic cultural integration that represents our diverse society.
Before moving to Australia four years ago, Catherine worked with Multinational Corporates in Africa, where she held several roles within Marketing and Project management for over 12 years.
Catherine is passionate about culture and the interconnectedness of brands, within our diverse multicultural communities. She thoroughly enjoys supporting businesses and organizations in delivering intercultural communication that is truly inclusive and representative. She does this through the EmBA Group consultancy arm and various community advocacy initiatives.
It’s a combination of both passion and innovation that led Catherine to launch the first-ever publishing media of its kind; EmBA Magazine, (the voice of African Australians), and the African Brands Catalogue/AU, (the home of African Australian brands) with a shared space for Australian allied partners. Catherine’s goal is to influence change through bold alliances.
Like the bird that feels the inevitable dawn before it comes, I sense a new way coming along.
Leesa Timbi
Founder of Papua New Guinean (PNG) Women Association of Victoria Inc.
Leesa was born in the village of Mount Hagen in PNG. She came to Australia at the age of 19 to study and live, and soon noticed how people of colour were treated differently by both the broader community and within her own community. Leesa she saw that there was something intrinstically wrong with the way people within her own community generally treated each other even though she was not fully aware of the concept of lateral racism at that time.
Leesa will share a brief history of the impact of Colonialism in PNG from 1945 till independence in 1975. She will talk about the impact of lateral racism which has implicitly affected many levels of development within PNG and as a people living in Australia and other countries. Leesa will share her insights as to how she envisions possible solutions going forward, hoping that it would pave the way for other communities with a shared experience.
BIO
Leesa is the founder of the Papua New Guinea Women’s Association of Victoria Inc., a not for profit organization established to empower the PNG women living in Victoria and remote communities in PNG.
Leesa is also the founder of Kakawilis Youth Group based in PNG, an informal group set up in her hometown of Mount Hagen to support disengaged young men experiencing drug addiction and other complex issues. She is a member of the Melbourne chapter of the Simbu Children’s Foundation, a foundation created to provide health care to communities in the Simbu province of Papua New Guinea.
Leesa is also a founding member of Acts of Random Kindness Victoria, a not for profit organization that aspires to build the capacity of young women and children of diverse communities in the western suburbs of Melbourne, through sports and leadership programs.
We have an opportunity to change the narrative. It’s important that we take time to sit, listen and learn.
Lowell Hunter
Proud Nyul Nylul Saltwater man
Director, Wan-Yaari Aboriginal Consultancy
Lowell is very passionate about Aboriginal culture and traditional dance, which he was fortunate enough to have had passed onto him from the age of 10. He now passes on this knowledge onto other young Aboriginal men. For a number of years Lowell has been professionally performing traditional dance and cultural ceremonies to a wide range of audiences, from community events to corporate performances. Lowell’s dedication to and passion for traditional dance and culture has provided him the opportunities to travel internationally to showcase this to other countries, including South Africa, China and New Zealand.
Lowell will share his cultural dance with us together with a group of dancers. He will then yarn with us about the significance of cultural dance and what it means for our First Peoples to be denied of their cultural rights.
BIO
Lowell Hunter is a proud Nyul Nyul Saltwater man from the Kimberley’s in Western Australia, who grew up on Gunditjmara Country in Warrnambool, and now lives on Wathaurong Country, Geelong. Although far apart, each of these special places have kept Lowell strongly connected to the ocean his whole life.
Lowell has a long-standing working background in the areas of Aboriginal Education, Health, Justice, Employment and youth mentoring. He is also an experienced Aboriginal cultural awareness training facilitator, having delivered training for a number of years to many large-scale organisations and government departments as well as extensive experience delivering school and kindergarten cultural incursion and tradition dance programs.
In addition to his consultancy work, Lowell creates sand art and uses drone photography to capture the scale of his works within breathtaking landscapes, which all started simply, as a way for him to get out and connect with culture, Country and sea.
Using only his feet, Lowell carves stories into the sand using the same foot movements he was taught through Traditional dance movements his people have practised for countless generations. Lowell’s artworks tell stories of family, identity and connection.
