What Kindness Makes Possible
A personal essay for The Guardian on the Minnesotan nurse who helped save my refugee family’s life, and what her kindness reveals about care, migration and the moral infrastructure of civil society.
Four decades after my parents fled the Khmer Rouge and arrived in Australia through the humanitarian program, we were reunited with Sandra Evenson, the nurse who had cared for us in a Thai-Cambodian refugee camp. Her story is a reminder that history is not only shaped by governments, borders and institutions, but also by ordinary people who choose compassion when it matters most.
Beyond Diversity Talk
In this ChangeMakers Podcast conversation, I reflected on what diversity means when it moves beyond polite language and becomes a practice of power, leadership and movement-building.
The conversation traces lessons from my high school days organising anti-racism walk outs, through to community organising in Australia and the UK as well as my experiences at Greenpeace and the founding of the Multicultural Leadership Initiative. At its heart it is a simple conversation on power, difference and leadership; and what it takes to create and collaborate for a world where we can all thrive.
FROM UTS TO GLOBAL SYSTEMS CHANGE
I was profiled by my undergraduate alma mater, the University of Technology Sydney, where I studied communications, political science and law nearly two decades ago. UTS was where I first began to understand that ideas are only powerful when they are put in service of people, institutions and change. The profile traces an arc from student activism and early human rights work to global leadership across Greenpeace, Amnesty International, philanthropy, strategy and social impact.
It was a meaningful piece because it captured something I have come to believe deeply: systems change is not built from a single discipline, role or identity. It is built by learning to move between worlds: law and story, strategy and organising, institutions and communities, then turning that range into practical impact.
When Data Meets Judgement
I was invited to deliver a keynote at eResearch Australasia, the Asia-Pacific's largest gatherings for the research data, digital infrastructure and technology community. The conference brought together leaders and practitioners across universities, research institutions, national infrastructure bodies, government, technology and data-intensive fields.
At the time I was only in my first year of my Masters of Technology, focused on Ai and Systems Engineering. It was a rare and generous invitation: to speak to a highly technical audience of data and technology experts about the human conditions that allow data to matter. Drawing on work across 6 continents with global civil society, I explored how organisations can move from instinct-led decisions to evidence-informed strategy without losing sight of people, power, context and judgement. Change happens when information becomes insight, insight becomes strategy, and strategy becomes action people are willing to organise around.
How Philanthropy Really Works
I was invited by Australian Progress to deliver Philanthropy: An Insider’s Guide for Fundraisers, a practical webinar for campaigners, organisers and social change leaders navigating the world of funders, foundations and movement resourcing. The session drew on my experience across civil society, philanthropy, movement funding and organisational leadership. It was designed to move beyond the mechanics of grant writing and into the deeper questions that shape whether social change work is properly resourced: trust, power, timing, relationships, strategy and risk.
At its best, philanthropy does more than fund projects. It backs leadership, strengthens institutions, takes ideas seriously before they become obvious, and gives movements the space to do work that is critical, not only work that is easy to fund.
The core message was simple: the strongest funding relationships are not transactions. They are acts of alignment around the future people are trying to build.