What does it mean to be a person with disability from a multicultural background?
How can I support a person with disability to access services if there’s a language or cultural barrier?
What does the Disability Royal Commission have to do with me?
Find out the answers to these questions and more at this free online event for multicultural service workers on Tuesday 10 May.
Hosted by Your Story Disability Legal Support, the lunchtime webinar will feature three guest speakers who will share their insights and offer practical tips and advice on supporting people with disability from multicultural backgrounds.
Born in Vietnam and migrating to Australia in the 1970s, Dominic Golding lives with hearing impairment and cerebral palsy, and is a strong advocate for both the disability and multicultural communities.
Farzana Choudhury is a Supervising Solicitor and proud woman of colour with Bangladeshi heritage who supports people with disability, providing free discrimination law and related assistance.
Zakia Patel is a community leader with a passion for using her skills to support marginalised communities, particularly young people.
The webinar will be facilitated by Your Story’s lawyer in the ACT, Audria Hu, who supports people to safely share their stories with the Disability Royal Commission.
Join the webinar to hear Dominic, Farzana, Zakia and Audria answer your questions about multiculturalism, disability and the Disability Royal Commission.
You can also find out about the tailored information and support Your Story can provide to multicultural service workers and their clients.
This free online event will include Auslan interpreters and live captions. You can join using Zoom or Facebook. Please visit the Eventbrite page to register and submit your questions to the panellists.
Date and time: Tuesday 10 May from 12:30—1:30pm AEST
Location: Online (please register to receive a link)
Cost: Free to attend Register: Please visit Eventbrite to register
Meet the speakers
Dominic Golding
Dominic has responsibility for Disability Royal Commission in the National Ethnic Disability Alliance (NEDA). Dominic is a strong advocate of the disability and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) community, with more than 17 years of experience in community work, cultural development and multicultural affairs.
Dominic is a person with lived experience of dual disability, being hearing impaired and living with cerebral palsy. He is from the CALD community, originally from Vietnam and migrating to Australia as a baby in the 1970s.
Over the past 17 years, Dominic has done extensive work within the disability space, providing support and accommodation to refugees with disability and working with small non-government organisations to deliver state election multicultural outreach and local council community support.
After working with the Department of Health and Human Services across a range of programs including in adoption and wardship as well as disability, Dominic developed a passion for social policy and service delivery to marginalised communities.
Dominic has two postgraduate degrees – one in social work and the other one by research on intercountry adoption and race. He has also completed a University of Melbourne fellowship (2018) report on refugees and asylum seekers with disabilities for refugee survivors and ex-detainees.
Dominic is a member of the Your Story Advisory Group.
Farzana Choudhury
Farzana is a Supervising Solicitor at Canberra Community Law. She runs the legal centre’s Disability Discrimination Law service, providing free discrimination law and related assistance to people with disability.
Farzana has a particular interest in disability rights, homelessness and poverty. She has channelled her passion for social justice through various initiatives, including leading Canberra Community Law’s social scripts project in partnership with Autism Spectrum Australia, establishing a legal education and advice clinic for women in prison, and investigating the application of poverty discrimination law frameworks as a 2019 Churchill Fellow.
Zakia Patel
Zakia is a community leader with a passion for using her skills to support marginalised communities, particularly young people. She is the Regional Managing Director of the Multicultural Hub Canberra, with responsibility for multicultural centres in Canberra, Queanbeyan, Goulburn, Bega and Cooma.
Zakia has over a decade of experience working in the community sector and has previously held senior positions with YMCA Canberra and Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council. She holds a Bachelor of Law/Economics.
In addition to her professional work in the community, Zakia has been a volunteer with the NSW State Emergency Service (SES) for 13 years and is the Unit Commander for the Queanbeyan SES Unit, where she oversees about 100 volunteers. In this role, Zakia has had the opportunity to participate in many local and interstate operations and is passionate about encouraging and empowering migrant women to volunteer in a predominately male dominated industry.
Audria Hu
Audria is a Your Story Disability Legal Support lawyer based in the ACT. She is also a solicitor in the civil litigation team at Legal Aid ACT, assisting people living with disabilities with mental health, tenancy and other civil law matters.
Prior to joining Legal Aid ACT, Audria worked at the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department, where she helped to develop domestic human rights policies and coordinated international human rights engagement.
Born into a migrant family, Audria is attuned to straddling two worlds and is passionate about amplifying the voices of people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and ensuring that they feel seen and heard.