Women’s Day Special
Women of Colour
Making Their Mark in Australia #BreakingTheBias In 2014, Lisa was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman by the President of India for building friendly Australia-India relations, the highest civilian honour for a person of Indian origin. In 2016, a highlight of her career was representing Australia at the United Nations General Assembly.
By Rekha Rajvanshi
Marked annually on March 8th, International Women’s Day is celebrated globally to recognise the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Significant activities take place worldwide as women’s groups and organizations come together to raise awareness about women’s equality and lobby for accelerated gender parity. In Australia too, women of Indian origin are contributing contribute to all spheres of life. They are business executives and owners, entrepreneurs, scientists, doctors, lawyers, philanthropists, mayors, nonprofit leaders, and community volunteers. On behalf of DESI Australia, I got an opportunity to speak with eight remarkable women who are passionate about their work and have made a mark in Australia. Let’s meet them today. Download Our App
Lisa Singh - Director of the Australia India Institute, Former Australian Senator, First female MP of South Asian descent Lisa Singh is a former Australian Senator and was the first woman of South Asian heritage to be elected to the Australian Parliament. She is the CEO of the Australia India Institute, a leading research and policy think-tank advancing Australia-India relations at the government, business, diaspora and academic levels. This is in addition to being the Deputy Chair of the Australian Government’s Australia-India Council and sitting on the advisory board of the University of Melbourne’s Asialink.
Lisa’s journey, like most women leaders, hasn’t been easy. She says - ‘As the first woman of Indian heritage to be elected to the Australian parliament, I became a role model for other women of Asian backgrounds to aspire to public office or leadership roles. Of course it was challenging being in politics, which was still a predominately male domain but I was inspired by so many amazing women leaders who went before me.’ Lisa is an inspiration to many. Her advice to women is - ‘Try to live up to your own sense of confidence, that allows to grow, learn how to become agile and adaptive, because let’s face it the system is biased, but don’t lose the sense of who you are, of the value of the diversity that you bring because that is your power.’
Melissa Montario - Chief Executive Officer at Community Migrant Resource Centre Melissa Monteiro is the CEO of the Community Migrant Resource Centre, Pro Bono Australia, IMPACT Australia 21 winner and Salvation Army Multicultural Ambassador (2020) has made a significant contribution down under. She is also a published author of ‘The Girl From Mumbai.’ Melissa has been a tireless advocate for women and has created awareness around gender bias, equity and empowering women for the last 7 years. She has
MARCH I 2022
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