I have been a bit of a global citizen; my dad was an Australian expat in the 1950s in Indonesia, flying a small plane around the Sumatran oilfields. He was a sort of Indiana Jones figure, so I suppose I have inherited an international focus. I have lived, studied and worked all over the place, including the US, UK and the Middle East and I spent 20 years on the island of Corfu (Greece) where I raised a bilingual family. So it was natural for me to want to work at the then Bureau of Ethnic Affairs in the Queensland Government when I arrived in Brisbane in 1989, in time for the election of Wayne Goss and major cultural changes for Queensland. However, it was teaching English in Malaysia and Shanghai, China and my volunteer year in Jakarta (Indonesia) in 2013-2014, which really focused my attention on international development.
In Indonesia, I was a volunteer English language advisor working for Australian Volunteers for International Development (AVID) at Indonesia’s National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan). The Commission advocates against all forms of violence against women while contributing to national law and policy reform and reporting on Indonesian women’s human rights internationally. My job was to build English language capability in any way I could for the 70-80 staff and Commissioners. This included working with them to apply for scholarships and fellowships to Australian universities, many of which were successful. I also had a fantastic time travelling to parts of Indonesia and to Penang, Malaysia and Phnom Penh, Cambodia, whilst in the region. While I worked hard to make a meaningful contribution on my AVID assignment, I do have some reservations about the role of volunteers in effective international development.
