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Humans of the Northern Beaches: We Belong is a podcast amplifying diverse voices from Sydney’s Northern Beaches. Hosted by local community leaders, each episode takes you on a journey through personal stories that delve into identity, culture, migration, disability, food and the profound connections that bind our community together.
Join us as we celebrate the stories that unite us all and discover how these narratives can inspire meaningful change in our own lives. Subscribe now and be part of a movement that embraces diversity and fosters community spirit.
All views and opinions expressed by participants in this podcast belong to the participants and do not reflect the views of Northern Beaches Council.
[Introduction] Hi, and welcome to the Humans of the
Northern Beaches We Belong podcast,
the show that gives a voice to a diverse
range of community members here on the
Northern Beaches in Sydney, Australia.
We wish to acknowledge the traditional
custodians of the lands on which we are
recording this podcast and show our
respect to the Elders past, present, and
any Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people listening in.
This podcast is proudly funded by the
New South Wales government through the New
South Wales Social Cohesion
Grants for Local Government.
All views and opinions expressed by
participants in this podcast belong to the
participants and do not reflect the
views of Northern Beaches Council.
[Margaret] Today, we're here with Melinda Ham.
Melinda is an award-winning journalist
and former foreign correspondent.
She was born in Canada and has lived and
worked in the UK, Malawi, Zambia,
Singapore, and India, and now resides on
the small serene patch of the Northern
Beaches known as Scotland Island.
Along the way, she's gathered stories,
both from her own life and from people
who have crossed oceans seeking safety.
Her book, The Lucky Ones, tells
just a few of those powerful tales.
Thank you so much for joining us here
today, Melinda, and
welcome to the podcast.
[Melinda] Thank you so much, Margaret.
It's a real privilege to be here.
[Margaret] Can you tell us...
So, we've got a bit of a
special episode today.
We're recording from Melinda's
home on Scotland Island.
We're usually recording in a podcast
studio, so it's a little
bit different for us today.
Can you tell us a bit about where we are,
Melinda, or what Scotland
Island is like for you?
[Melinda] Scotland Island, we're on the lands
of the Guringai people, actually.
It's been settled since 1810.
There was a freed convict who was given
the whole of Scotland Island in 1810.
And so that's when white settlement began.
And so it's been continuous
settlement until now.
But today, I would say there's
around 500 to 600 houses.
And so probably about 700
people live on this island.
And it's a hilly island
as you found coming up.
[Margaret] I tested my fitness walking up.
[Melinda] Yeah, so we're on the second level.
So there's the waterfront, and then
there's this second tier, and
then there's the higher tier.
So we actually are 200
steps from the water.
So we carry all our shopping, all our..
anything that we want to take
up and down up those steps.
[Margaret] And it really feels like a community from
what I've observed so far
from being here today.
There's a little street
library in the wharf.
There's a calendar with
everyone's birthdays.
And yeah, it just seems like a place where
people still have that sense of community
and people are willing to
look out for each other.
[Melinda] Yeah, it is a village.
It definitely is a village with all the
goodness and all the drawbacks of a
village, where everybody mostly knows
what's going on with everybody else.
[Margaret] Not many people live on islands
within commuting distance of Sydney.
So what drew you here and what do
you love most about island life?
[Melinda] What drew us here is that we had lived
overseas in India and also in Singapore
with our kids, and they
were still pretty young.
Harry was four and Jasmine was six.
And we wanted to find a place where they
could roam free, play with their friends,
and have a feeling of safety and also be
in nature, because we'd lived in Mumbai,
which was a very densely
populated city in India.
And we'd also lived in Singapore, which is
also full of high rises and very populous.
So we came back in 2003, and we wanted to
live somewhere near the water, we decided.
But we started to look at real estate
prices, and this was in 2003,
from Manly up here.
And this was the one
that fitted best in our budget.
[Margaret] Well, it's pretty idyllic as well,
I would say, these waterfront views.
Yeah, it's a beautiful place.
[Melinda] Oh, yeah.
And there's a ferry that takes the
kids to Newport Primary School.
And so we didn't have
to drive them to school.
And then they can get the ferry to
Pittwater High, which most of them go to.
[Margaret] That saves a morning
rush then, in a way.
[Melinda] Yeah, it was a It was a pretty easy life.
And we're lucky, my partner and I both
work from home on the island, so we were
able to enjoy living
here as much as possible.
[Margaret] Yeah, it sounds like
the right place for you.
So let's go back to your time
as a foreign correspondent.
What was it like working
in Malawi and Zambia?
It was a fantastic time to be there
because it was
when there was a bit of a movement for
democracy in the African continent.
So several countries were having
these demonstrations
and people were feeling empowered that
they could actually demand a democratic
state, because most of the countries in
Africa at the time were dictatorships,
and they wanted to have change.
So it was a very exciting place to live.
In Malawi, we were the only foreigners
who were correspondents there.
And it was very fortuitous because the
year and a half that we lived there, the
Pope visited, Margaret Thatcher visited.
[Margaret] A lot going on the world stage.
[Melinda] Yeah.
And there was massive floods,
and there was also a huge refugee crisis.
And that's what was exciting, but also
horrific to watch because
neighbouring to Malawi is Mozambique.
And there was a civil war that
had gone on for many, many years.
And refugees were fleeing from Mozambique
into Malawi almost on a daily basis.
And it was one of the biggest
stories that we covered.
So we went down to the refugee camps, my
partner Mike and I, and we saw people who
had just come over, and some of them
had their houses burned to the ground.
Other people, their
daughters had been raped.
They just had the clothes
that they were standing up in.
And it was pretty confronting to see that.
We were only in our 20s, and this was
our first place we had been posted.
But at the same time, the Malawian people
and also the Malawian government were
very welcoming to these refugees.
That's one thing we found
incredibly heartwarming.
I mean, the Malawian government did get
international aid, but
Malawi is a very tiny country.
It only has eight million people.
[Margaret] And landlocked as well.
[Melinda] And landlocked.
And in that time, about a
million refugees came in.
[Margaret] Wow, that's a huge proportion.
[Melinda] So there was massive tent cities
of refugees and that thing.
[Margaret] So what stories were you
covering when you were there?
I guess you were working for an
overseas newspaper or news agency?
[Melinda] We were working because we were the
only Western foreign correspondents.
There was also Malawian
foreign correspondents.
Then when we went into Zambia, there was
Zambian foreign correspondents as well.
But we were covering every kind of stories.
I was working mostly for the
American Associated Press.
So sometimes they said, "Oh, there's a golf
tournament", an international golf
tournament that I had to cover.
So I would be covering golf, which
I didn't really understand.
And also we were covering a lot of those major
issues that I mentioned before, like the
floods and the refugees and that kind of thing.
So there was a big mix
of different stories.
[Margaret] Were there any particular stories
that stuck with you from those years?
[Melinda] I think it was pretty exciting to see the
visit of the Pope because that was
John Paul, who was who visited then.
And that was a huge production.
So all the people came
out and danced for him.
There was big dance groups, there were
singing groups, and there was
literally tens of thousands of people
who filled the stadium to see them talk.
So that was pretty exciting.
And then also the whole multiparty
democracy, because we were in Malawi for a
year and a half,
and then we had to leave because of
one of the stories that we'd written.
So then we went first to Zimbabwe for
a little while and then to Zambia.
And we were in Zambia right at the
time that Nelson Mandela was released.
Nelson Mandela, he had been in jail for 27 years, and
his party was the African
National Congress.
And they had lived mostly in exile in
Lusaka, which is the capital of Zambia.
So a couple of weeks after he was
released, he went straight up to Zambia
because he wanted to see all his mates
that had been rooting for him
while he had been in jail.
[Margaret] Wow. What an exciting time to be there.
[Melinda] Yeah.
So we got the privilege
to be able to meet him.
And that was...
[Margaret] Oh, wow.
[Melinda] Yeah.
He had a small press conference with us
and some other journalists who were there
at the time, and we got to be as
close as I am to you right now.
So that was quite an exciting highlight of
my life, I would say, to actually
meet a man of his stature.
[Margaret] Yes.
[Melinda] Yeah.
[Margaret] Not many people get that opportunity
at such a young age as well.
[Melinda] Yeah.
And he is an incredible man.
Well, he was an incredible man.
He's now died.
But he was one of these people who takes
so much time with everybody
and talks about, "how's your..."
Not me, because he didn't
know me, but people he knew.
"How's your mother?"
"How's your daughter?"
"Oh, is she still doing this?"
And he'd still kept in touch with a
lot of people's family,
and he was very caring.
He was a very humble person.
So, yeah, that was quite a privilege
to be able to meet a man like that.
[Margaret] Yeah, it sounds like it.
So you've spent time in a lot
of other different countries.
What is it like to constantly be an
outsider looking in while
also being the storyteller?
[Melinda] Yeah, I think that's a
really good question.
I think it gives you a perspective.
I think it's always important to know who
your audience is and to think about who
you're amplifying the story of and
who you're telling the story to.
So in all the different situations, in the
different countries that I was in, I was
always trying to be cognisant of that.
But, yeah, it was interesting.
But it was also, you feel...
I started to feel a sense that I wanted to
have my own place that
was my sense of belonging.
When you're moving around and
you're not located in one place for a long
time, you feel a sense of
disassociation after a while.
So that was part of why
we came back to Australia.
I think we wanted to raise our kids in one
place and have them have a sense of
belonging, to be able to make friends
that would last a while and that kind of thing.
And I mean, we found it
on the Northern Beaches.
[Margaret] So
did living in places with such strong
contrast, like you mentioned, Mumbai,
obviously Malawi, Zambia, Canada,
places with such strong identities in
contrast, did they influence your sense
of identity or your sense of belonging?
[Melinda] Yeah, I would say that it gave me a real
appreciation of different cultures
and respect of different cultures.
I think
when I came to Australia, one thing I
really loved about it was it seemed a very
welcoming country to different cultures.
And I felt that sometimes
there was curiosity from...
Like, whenever I opened my mouth, people
were like, "Oh, where do you come from?"
I'm like, "I'm from Canada."
And that happened quite frequently,
especially at the beginning when I first
arrived, but now I have a bit of a morphed
accent, which has taken
on some Aussie tones.
But yeah, I think there's curiosity in a
lot of Aussies that they want to know
where people come from, and there's
interest in people
of diverse backgrounds.
And I think that's a fantastic thing.
And even in regional areas, I think. I've
travelled around to
many different parts of Australia.
And there's a warm and welcoming feeling
in a lot of different places,
to a lot of different cultures.
And I think that's a fantastic thing.
And that's one thing I have
liked about coming to Australia.
Yeah.
[Margaret] Do you find people still
ask where you're from?
[Melinda] Yeah.
[Margaret] And I mean, just as a personal thing,
I lived in Scotland for a few years.
And by the end of my time there, and I'm
talking three years, not long at all.
But people would always
ask, "oh, where are you from?"
And I just felt like
saying, "I'm from here."
I just felt like I had so many
close friends from that area.
I felt like I really belonged there.
But always you have people
saying, "oh, where are you from?"
[Melinda] Yeah.
Well, I mean.. so we came here in 1994.
And so I've actually lived more of my
life in Australia than I have lived
anywhere else, even in Canada.
So I only lived in Canada until I was 22.
So I actually, despite my accent, I
would say I identify as Australian.
Because I know more about Australia.
I've learnt more about the culture and the
history than I actually
ever knew about Canada.
So that might sound a bit extraordinary,
but I think some other people who have
come here and have been here for as
long as I have may have shared those kind of things.
[Margaret] Yeah, I'm sure a lot of
people feel the same way.
And I guess that's one of the nice things
about Australia, that so many people
do feel like they belong here.
Yeah, yeah.
So you've worked in fast paced news
environments, but also on slower
human-centred projects
like The Lucky Ones.
Has your relationship with
storytelling changed over time?
[Melinda] I think I would say that I really, really
enjoy writing The Lucky Ones,
which is a book, which is a collection of
stories from going across
70 years and seven families.
And I really enjoyed taking the time, as
you're kindly taking the time now, to sit
down with people and really
listen to their story.
So I wasn't just after a quick news bite
and having a brief conversation where I
wasn't really getting to the depths of
why people had experienced this situation.
So in The Lucky Ones, to do that, I went
and talked to families that had come from
Afghanistan, Tibet, Iraq, Vietnam, Poland.
[Margaret] And how did you go about
finding these people?
[Melinda] So to find these people, I
used many different ways.
I used networks that I already had through
people that I knew on the Northern
Beaches, through people I'd met in the
media, and friends, and just leaned
on people in lots of different ways.
And there were some dead ends,
but I started to get this idea that I
wanted to amplify stories of people who
were not famous because we have all heard
of the incredible stories of people like
Anh Do, but he's quite a famous person,
and he was even a famous comedian when he
started, when he first wrote his book.
So I wanted to amplify the story of people
who are not famous, people who you might
meet in Woollies or Coles who are
checkout people or a hospital orderly.
[Margaret] I found that with the podcast, too.
Everyone thinks that their story is
uninteresting, but
when you start talking to people, you
really get a sense for how
deep their stories run and how
much they really have to share.
[Melinda] Yeah.
And I also wanted to amplify
the stories of women.
And so that started to narrow down
some of the people that I was meeting.
And I wanted to make sure in the seven
families that I did end up using in the
book that they all had strong
women in their stories.
And then the other thing I started to
become interested in was
the second generation.
So, the children of refugees and
what their experience was like as well.
So all the families have children.
And so I talk to their children as well.
I wanted to give a full picture of
what it's like to be a refugee, leaving
your homeland, coming here,
and settling here, and then having a
family and what those
experiences are like.
So yeah, that's how-
[Margaret] Yeah, I suppose with
some families going back over 70 years,
some of them might even have
grandchildren at this stage.
So it would be interesting to know
what the grandchild's experience of it is
and how connected they feel to the story.
[Melinda] Yeah.
And in some cases, also the children
translated for their parents because the
parents weren't confident
speaking English to me.
And so the children translated
for their parents.
And then also what I did with the book is
that once I'd written it, I went back to
the people and got them to look at the
manuscript and look at the section about
them and to make sure that they
were okay with what they told me.
And with some of the families,
the parents were illiterate
even in their own language.
So we had to read it to them.
And then they agreed or they disagreed.
They're like, "oh, I said that?
Oh, no!"
"Okay, you got to change that."
Or, "oh, I might have
exaggerated a bit there."
[Margaret] But also how powerful to hear your own
story told back to you by, I'm
guessing, their child, perhaps.
[Melinda] Yeah.
I hope the child always
did a faithful translation.
[Margaret] Yes!
You're putting quite a
bit of trust in them.
What I was going to say is journalism
often ask for objectivity, but these
human stories are pretty emotional.
So how did you strike the balance between
objectivity and telling the story in the
way that reflected what they were saying?
[Melinda] Well, I took all their stories, and
then I tried to contextualise them.
I researched the period in history,
well, recent history, most of them, but
also going back to the Second World War.
I tried to check dates and places that
they said to
really make sure that that was
correct, what they said, because it's
a book of narrative non-fiction.
By doing the research, I tried to paint
the picture of what it was like in that
period and even what the
place would look like.
And then I checked those details with
them to make sure that it was accurate.
So, for example, when I was talking
about Afghanistan, I was talking about
the valley where Nick Moore grew up.
And so I asked her, "were
there these fruit trees?"
And "what was it like?"
after I'd done my research,
and she goes, "yeah, that was right."
"But no, we didn't have almond trees" or
whatever it was, the specific detail.
So that was one thing that was important.
So I fact-checked their stories.
And at the same time,
I think what's really important is that
you want to amplify their stories,
and they're the storytellers.
So it's not me telling their stories, it's
them telling their stories and
it being amplified.
So it's a subtle difference, but that
was one thing that was really important.
And I think also it's a big philosophical thing, and even
especially right now with the issues
that are going on in the world,
but impartiality and journalism, I think,
is quite a difficult issue because I think
with some issues, when there's definitely
human rights abuse that is happening, I
think we need to tell those stories as
they are and not make a judgement
maybe, but just say human rights
abuse is happening in this situation.
And there was human rights abuse in all
the stories that I covered because the
people were detained or
they were involved in many
different situations where they
were tortured or they were abused.
And so those were definitely
situations where there wasn't
objectivity involved.
[Margaret] Yeah.
How do you approach listening, really
listening to someone whose story might
be really hard to tell or hard to hear?
[Melinda] I have to listen to how they're saying it.
And in a few cases,
people started telling their story and
weren't able to continue it
because it became too painful.
So one of the people in my book is,
well, he's from the Democratic Republic of
Congo, as it's called today,
but it was called Zaire then.
He was called Jeff.
And he was detained, and he
was telling his story to me.
And I asked him about his
detention and his torture.
And he started to talk about the details.
And then he said, "Oh,
I can't say anymore."
And I said, "Oh, what's the problem?"
And he said, "Well, I've never told
anybody the details of this story."
And I said, "Okay, you
don't have to tell me."
"It's fine.
I don't want to retraumatise you."
"Is it okay if I just say
that you were tortured?"
And he said, "Yeah, that's fine."
But I could tell by looking at him that it
was a place he didn't want
to go with the conversation.
And I tried as hard as possible to be
respectful of that, because really,
everybody tells their own story, and
you are
empowered to leave out what you want to
tell and what you don't want to tell.
And so, the book is a rendition of..
It's an authorised biography of all these
people who are mentioning it
because they all authorised it.
They're all happy that you're reading it.
[Margaret] So just rewinding a bit, what made
you want to tell these stories?
Was it your experience
covering refugees leaving Mozambique?
[Melinda] I think that's where it really started.
When I emigrated to Australia, it was...
So I emigrated here in 1994, and
things were quite positive towards
refugees and asylum seekers.
But then during the Howard and Abbott and
other Prime Minister years, things became
quite negative towards refugees and asylum
seekers, and
especially with the whole Turn Back
the Boats policy and border protection.
At that time, I got involved with the
As Asylum Seekers Centre, and I worked
there as a volunteer, and I would
go out to do community talks.
I went out to community groups, to
schools, to churches, to other events.
And I told stories that
that refugees and
asylum seekers had told to me.
I amplified those, and I told them to the
community groups, because the purpose of
those talks was to try
and change the narrative.
And I think that that made a huge impact
on a few people who listened, hopefully.
But on one occasion, I was telling a story
about a refugee, and I was talking...
He came from Afghanistan, and his father
and his brother had been
killed by the Taliban.
And I was explaining that story.
And I was saying when he came to
Australia, one thing he really wanted was
a job because then he would
feel that he had dignity.
People don't just want to be on Centrelink
when they come here as refugees.
Everybody, almost everybody, unless they
have experienced real trauma,
would love to have a job.
[Margaret] I was just going to say I
work with a lot of refugees.
And when they come here, I think they get
$200 from Centrelink
or something like that.
But we often hear them saying, "no, we want
to pay Australia for giving us a home."
They don't want to take this money.
They think that they should be paying
Australia for the
privilege of coming here.
But yeah.
[Melinda] Yeah, I think that's exactly right.
I think there's this
whole feeling of pride that people, if
they can and are able, they want to work.
So when I was giving this talk,
this was at some.. I can't remember.. some
community club meeting, some guy came up
to me afterwards and he goes, "oh, well, I
actually could employ
refugees in my business.
Maybe, could you put me in the right in
touch with the right person
at the Asylum Seekers Centre?
Because I would love to have
the refugees working for me."
And that was a pivotal moment.
It sounds small, but it was just like..
so I've just told these little stories.
And then this guy thinks 'Oh, maybe I would
like to have refugees in my workplace.'
And I thought at that point,
well, maybe I should write a book.
Maybe I should use my
skills that I have as a writer and a
journalist and an interviewer
and amplify some stories.
So that's what I did.
And that's how I went
about writing the book.
[Margaret] And you called the book The Lucky Ones.
What does that title mean to you
and to the people you spoke with?
[Melinda] Well, so Jeff, who I mentioned before,
who was the person from the Democratic
Republic of Congo, his
partner was called Lulu.
And she escaped separately from him
because he was taken into
detention, and she escaped.
And she came to a Refugee Camp in Zambia,
and eventually she was able to leave.
But she felt this huge sense of guilt
because she looked around at the thousands
of other people who had not
got the opportunity to leave, who had not
got a special humanitarian visa
to settle in another country.
And she said, to me,
"we are the lucky ones."
Yeah, she felt that the people who
get to leave are the lucky ones.
And even the people who get to flee their
country, they're lucky that they get to
flee their country because they don't have
to stay and endure the
human rights abuse that's happening.
So it was from her words
that I wrote that.
[Margaret] Okay.
Yeah.
And I suppose in some cases,
the visas, they're drawn from a ballot.
So in a sense, yeah, those people who are
fortunate enough to receive
those visas are the lucky ones.
[Melinda] Yeah.
And in countries, particularly in
Tibetans who are in India
who got to come to Australia.
That's exactly how they're drawn.
[Margaret] Yeah.
It's a ballot.
Did you come away with a different
understanding of what resilience
looks like from interviews?
[Melinda] I think resilience is an incredible
characteristic that a lot of these people
that I had the opportunity to
speak with have.
I think it puts your own life into
perspective when you talk to people who
are ordinary people but have
had extraordinary journeys.
And yes, it definitely did put resilience
into perspective because
a lot of these people had left incredible
hardship, but over time, they were able
to establish themselves in Australia.
And without exception, they all worked
incredibly hard, and they made a new life
for themselves and a new
life for their family.
And they had that strength and that
determination
to keep on going despite what they had
experienced and despite the loss that they
had, the people that they left behind.
And yeah.
And I think
we, meaning the Australian population in
general, can learn so much from all the
migrant people, all the refugees, all the
asylum seekers,
and how much hardship they have
gone through and what they contribute to
Australia today, and the
resilience that they have.
[Margaret] Was there anything that surprised you,
either historically or emotionally,
while you were writing the book?
[Melinda] I would say that I was very surprised
because I come from Canada, but when I got
into the detail about
how Australia has welcomed refugees.
And I think because I arrived in a period
when there was a lot of
bad press about refugees and asylum
seekers, then to look from a historical
perspective and see how kind and
welcoming Australia had been.
I found that very heartwarming,
and it made me feel happy that I was...
Because initially, I didn't feel happy
with the environment and welcoming that
refugees and asylum seekers
were receiving.
Because I think from 1975
until 2000, those 25 years,
there were many refugees,
tens of thousands of refugees who came
from all over the world, and they were
really welcomed into Australia from all
the different crises that were happening,
all the different conflicts,
be it in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos,
and Lebanon, in the former Yugoslavia.
There was in in Tibet and China, even with
the Tiananmen Square crisis, there were so
many occasions when Australia showed
warmth and compassion towards refugees, and not just
Labour, but Liberal governments as well.
And I found that
that was pretty incredible.
And that's why, I guess, when
we come to the point of the year 2000
with the Tampa, which was this cargo ship.
I'll just tell you briefly what that was.
The Tampa affair was a cargo ship that had
picked up 400 people who had come from
Afghanistan who were seeking asylum.
And they had this boat.
The Tampa had 400 Afghani people on board,
and they were turned back from Australia,
and they had to turn back
and leave Australia.
And they were not welcomed at that point.
And Prime Minister John Howard
changed legislation at that point.
So that was a point, I think,
where Australia did not show
compassion towards refugees.
And to read the historically what had
happened prior to that, it gave me a lot
of hope that things could get better.
[Margaret] Yeah, that they could shift again.
[Melinda] Yeah
[Margaret] So after years of reporting in some pretty
high pressure places or places of great
change and upheaval, what does it feel
like to live in such a peaceful and
remote community on the Northern Beaches?
[Melinda] Well, it's very lovely to live here.
And I do go into Sydney quite a bit. I
still like the excitement, and I still
like to keep up to date with the news.
I don't want to be completely disconnected.
I do, and I am very much connected with
refugee communities in Australia as well.
So it has been a very fascinating time that I
have been lucky enough to live through
to work in these different places.
But at the same time, I am happy to
have this peaceful place to live now.
I'm a trail runner, so I spend a lot
of time running in the national park.
I really enjoy
the opportunity just to see things in the
moment, to see flowers, to listen to
birds, to even sometimes snakes,
but really to enjoy being in the moment.
And I know that that is a privilege.
And I know there are millions of people
around the world who don't have that
opportunity to have a peaceful existence.
So I'm very aware of my
privilege to do that.
[Margaret] Yeah.
Well, it sounds like you're never far from
adventure wherever you are in the world.
After all these years of travelling and
listening, what still
sparks your curiosity?
[Melinda] I'm still very curious and
interested in world affairs.
I still do follow the news,
and I'm very much interested in refugee
issues and what's happening
towards refugees and asylum
seekers all over the world.
So I follow that very closely,
and I also follow it within
the refugee communities here.
I have been lucky enough to go to
Parliament House twice in the last couple of
months, New South Wales Parliament,
first of all, to celebrate the
commemoration of the fall of Saigon
with the Vietnamese community.
And then just a couple of weeks ago, I
was invited to go to the 90th
celebration of the Dalai Lama.
[Margaret] Yeah, the 90th birthday celebration.
[Melinda] Yeah.
So that was fantastic to be able to be
engaged and involved with
people of those communities.
And it's lovely to be able to retreat here on
this island, but also to
still be involved and engaged.
[Margaret] And given that you do have your ear to the
ground, how do you think
people are feeling towards migration
and stories of displacement?
What have you noticed
in promoting your book and
speaking to different communities?
Do you think we're
shifting to be a little bit more
receptive, or do you feel
like people are closing off?
[Melinda] Yeah, I was very
inspired and excited when I went to
regional Australia, and
when I spoke to communities there,
many of those communities, like I
went to Ballarat, Bendigo, WoodEnd.
I went south of Adelaide
to a place called Aldinga.
And there is a lot of
support for refugees.
And that was an amazing opportunity to be
able to talk with people who were
welcoming refugees into their homes
because there's a community
resettlement programme that is national.
And so there's community resettlement
groups all over Australia who are
helping to welcome refugees
and then find them accommodation.
And so I met many of those groups.
I also met people who call
themselves Rural Australians for Refugees,
and they advocate for refugee rights.
They go to Parliament House, they raise
money for refugees, they have speakers.
And that's a national network of
people who care about refugees.
And I think going around the country and
seeing those attitudes, I was hoping that
also politicians would have those
opportunities to listen to what people
felt about having refugees
in their communities.
Because I think a lot of people in
regional and rural Australia, they see
refugees coming into their communities as
a real positive, because many younger
people are leaving regional
and rural Australia.
And so to have
younger families coming in and populating
those places and people also with skills.
The people whom I spoke with saw the value
in that and also adding a multicultural
dimension to regional and rural Australia.
And so I felt very positive about
that whole experience.
And I think even when I've gone around and
talked to places in
Sydney as well, and in Melbourne, there
has also been a really warm reception to
migration and to asylum seekers.
Maybe I'm talking to the wrong people.
Maybe there are people
who feel very negative and angry
about refugees and asylum seekers.
I mean, I'm sure there are.
But I think that attitudes are changing.
There's a lot of movement happening to
increase the number of
refugees that are coming in here from the
government's pathway and then
also alternative pathways.
[Margaret] Yeah, the community-led pathway.
[Melinda] Yeah, and the education
pathway and the skills pathway.
So I think things are going to...
I mean, I'm hopeful that things
are going to get better from here.
[Margaret] Yeah, that's great to hear.
Are you working on
anything new at the moment?
Another book, maybe, or
a podcast of your own?
[Melinda] I have a book proposal that my
agent is trying to find a home for, which
is about resettlement of refugees,
where I'm hoping if someone takes it up to
go out to different parts of Australia and
talk about the actual resettlement
of refugees that is happening.
I'll still continue in the same vein as
The Lucky Ones and amplify the
journeys of people who have come here.
But I'd like to also focus on
the experience of some of the Australian
communities that are welcoming
refugees and what that's been like.
So take a more resettlement lens and look
at the refugee situation in Australia.
[Margaret] Wow, fascinating.
I look forward to staying tuned to that.
[Melinda] Yeah.
Well, I just hope we can find a publisher.
[Margaret] And where can people find you?
If they're looking for you or your
book, where can they find you?
[Melinda] Well, they can find me on
LinkedIn. So I'm on LinkedIn.
Just send me a message on LinkedIn and you
can link in with me, or you can also find
me on Facebook, or if you would like me to
talk at one of your events, you can just
contact my publisher
of the book, The Lucky Ones Affirm Press,
which is part of Simon & Schuster,
and then they'll get in touch with me.
[Margaret] Well, thank you so much
for joining us today.
It was a pleasure to
have you on the podcast.
[Melinda] Thank you so much, Margaret.
[Ending] Everyone has a story to share.
The next time you see someone you don't
know in your neighbourhood, be curious,
say hello, and you may be surprised
to hear the story they have to tell.
We hope you have enjoyed this episode.
Leave a review, listen to another episode,
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