Community and International Involvement

• Wonder Factory Volunteer, Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation (December 2008 – Ongoing)
  The Working Wonders Foundation, through the Wonder Factory and other programs, provide support and entertainment for children admitted to the Royal Children’s Hospital, as well as their families and carers. The Wonder Factory is a room in the hospital that provides games, toys, books, computers, events, and other entertainment for children.
  As a Wonder Factory volunteer, I assist the other volunteers with running and managing the Wonder Factory space. This usually involves cleaning up and checking out toys and media, and interacting with the kids and assisting them where possible. I and other volunteers also bring toys and games to the wards and play with children that aren’t able to come down to the Wonder Factory.

• Delegate, Brightest Young Minds 2008 (August 2008)
  The Brightest Young Minds summit brought together 100 of Australia’s best young people in social change, business, creativity, and so on to learn practical skills on social change, and to create and develop real-world projects based on community development through the Open Space model.
  In the workshops, we gained skills in community organising, project planning, marketing, image development, business planning, and so on. I proposed projects on social enterprise education in Australia and supporting high achievers, but eventually went to work on The Social Broker, a project that connects related businesses, non-profits, and university students together for mutual benefit.

• Participant, ActNow Incubator (July 2007)
  ActNow provides young Australians with information and resources on social change, activism, and community development.
  The Incubator worked as a focus group for ActNow, critiquing the website and providing suggestions for improvement. There were also hands-on training in social change through letter-writing as well as talks with people from the Inspire Foundation and Médecins Sans Frontières Australia.

• Participant, AWAM Writers for Women’s Rights (March 2006)
  The All Women’s Action Society is a feminist organisation that campaigns for women’s rights in Malaysia.
  In the WWRP program, we were given training on using writing as a medium for social change – specifically, writing letters to the editor and news articles. We wrote letters on issues such as gender rights, gay rights, and discrimination, and analysed gender bias in contemporary Malaysian media. We also organised and performed a skit about women’s rights for International Women’s Day.