Wendy McCarthy AO

Wendy began her career as a secondary school teacher and remains passionate about the power of education and its ability to transform lives. For decades she has been a teacher, educator and change agent in Australian public life. Wendy has worked with government, corporations and community based organisations in education, women’s issues, public health, heritage, and media and she has held national leadership roles in all of these areas. She has represented Australia at conferences on women’s health and leadership, education, broadcasting, conservation and heritage and for four years was Chair of the Advisory Committee of WHO Kobe Centre, Japan. Currently she is the Chair of Circus Oz; McGrath Estate Agents; headspace Youth Mental Health Foundation and the Pacific Friends of the Global Fund. She is a Non-Executive Director to GoodStart Childcare Limited.  In November 2009, after 13 years of service, Wendy retired as the Vice-Chair of Plan International and as the Director of Plan Hong Kong and Plan Australia. In 2005, she completed a decade as Chancellor of the University of Canberra and she was a founding member of the Australian Chancellors’ Conference. As well as being a published author, Wendy has held executive and non-executive director roles in many of Australia’s leading private and public institutions. Her advocacy for the rights of women and children and leadership have been recognised nationally and in 1989 she was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia for outstanding contributions to community affairs, women’s affairs and the Bicentennial celebrations. In 1996 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of South Australia and in 2003 she was awarded a Centenary of Federation medal for business leadership. Wendy thinks of herself as a tribal elder.

http://www.wendymccarthy.com.au/
http://www.plan.org.au/
http://www.headspace.org.au/


Photographer: Diane Macdonald
Location: Sydney

Sarah SH Lee

Sarah’s son, Ping Lian, is an extraordinary artist who is also Autistic. He is recognised by experts in the field as a prodigious savant - of which there are fewer than a hundred in the world today. Savants are people who possess one or more areas of expertise, ability, or brilliance that are in contrast with their overall limitations. When he was a child, Sarah encouraged Ping Lian to trace and colour to strengthen his fine motor skills. Repetition led to obsession, ultimately developing his exceptional art talent. Recognising his potential, Sarah started to sell his intricate drawings and paintings, and word quickly spread around the world. His beautiful art serves as a source of satisfaction, income, development and growth for him, helping to minimize whatever limitations that might spring from his disabilities. And right beside him is Sarah – dedicated, determined and perpetually optimistic about his future. His artwork has been showcased in galleries, and his story documented in books and films. His success is a tribute to Sarah’s love and her belief in his abilities.


http://www.pinglian.com/
http://therockspopup.tumblr.com/

Photographer: Diane Macdonald
Location: The Rocks, Sydney

Dr Sharron Flahive

Over twenty years ago, Sharron’s career as a Team Sports Physician commenced in the traditional heartland of New Zealand’s Polynesian rugby league in Wainuiomata. That was a time when doctors’ involvement in team sport was the preserve of men, forged through long association of family, club or friendship with the coach. However, Sharron was the first of a new breed of specialist Sports Physicians. Her team medical management and rehabilitation skills, aided with some sound pragmatism and humour, converted even her most entrenched critics. Twelve years ago, Sharron was appointed Chief Medical Officer for the NSW Waratahs Super Rugby Team and became the first female Chief Medical Officer of a Super Rugby franchise. Her honest and direct approach is sensitive to the fine line that exists between  doctor/patient confidentiality, the requirements of the player’s physical and emotional state, and the demands of the collective team. Through her pragmatic approach, Sharron has engendered an unqualified level of trust and respect from a generation of Australian professional players and coaches. Professional sports people are exposed to some incredible highs and some equally devastating lows and Sharron, by being involved in the medical care of these athletes, experiences a small part of that which in itself is challenging, exciting and, at times, heartbreaking.

www.nsosmc.com.au
www.sosmc.com.au
www.waratahs.com.au
 Charity: ‘Dress for Success’:  www.dressforsuccess.org/Sydney

Photographer: Diane Macdonald
Location: Sydney Football Stadium, Sydney

Dr Leanne Piggott

Leanne is a specialist in Middle East security issues, terrorism, counter-terrorism, and energy security. She is the author of the book, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Timeless Struggle, and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She began teaching Middle East politics some decades ago, with a focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict. It was a subject that, in many cases, attracted students with pre-conceived assumptions about who was right or wrong, driven more often than not by their cultural and religious background. She learned quickly the importance of establishing an intellectual model for students that requires them to apply a critical lens to all narratives as a means of understanding why conflict exists and to challenge unexamined assumptions and biases that lie at the heart of all prejudices and, in the worst cases, extremist ideologies. Now located in The University of Sydney Business School, Leanne teaches about opportunities and risks in the business environment, including political and security issues.  Her research continues to examine the security environment of the Middle East generally and geopolitical factors that impact on global energy markets in particular. It remains a research realm that is largely the domain of male academics and policy analysts, who at times must struggle with their own set of perception biases as to what a woman might have to contribute to the world of security.  High on Leanne’s agenda is the need to provide research supervision for more women preparing to become professionals in the public and private sectors in the areas of international security and risk analysis.

http://sydney.edu.au/business/staff/leannep

Photographer: Diane Macdonald
Location: The University of Sydney

Professor Elizabeth Elliott AM

Elizabeth is a paediatrician at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, dedicated to enhancing child health and wellbeing through clinical care, research, education and advocacy. She is Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Sydney and Founder/Director of the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit, which facilitates research on rare, debilitating childhood diseases, and instigated development of a national plan for rare diseases. She is Chief Investigator for the Lililwan Project –to address fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) in the remote Fitzroy Valley in the Kimberley, WA. She holds a prestigious Practitioner Fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia. Since 2005 Elizabeth has run education workshops for clinicians in remote Dien Bien Province in Vietnam to address high maternal and child mortality. She attended the Prime Ministers 2020 summit, was twice a NSW finalist in the Telstra Business Woman of the Year awards and in 2008 received an AM for service to paediatrics and child health. Community contributions include to the SMILE Foundation, Cure Kids Australia, Steve Waugh Foundation, Women’s College (University of Sydney), SCEGGS Darlinghurst, NSW Guides and the Hoc Mai Australia Vietnam Medical Foundation. 

www.apsu.org.au
www.thewomenscollege.com.au
www.girlguides-nswact.org.au
www.smilefoundation.com.au
www.sceggs.nsw.edu.au
www.georgeinstitute.org.au/marulu
www.nhmrc.gov.au
www.chw.edu.au
http://sydney.edu.au/medicine/hocmai/

Photographer: Diane Macdonald
Location: The University of Sydney

Fay Nelson AM

Fay, an elder of the Banjin people, has always been passionate about bringing dignity and respect to the Aboriginal people, to their traditions and way of life. Armed with only a 6th grade education, Fay withstood the jokes and jeers as she pioneered her way into the art world, ultimately bringing Aboriginal Art to its now recognised place in Western society. Marketing Aboriginal Art to Westerners was a challenge as their traditional descriptions of art did not apply to Aboriginal Art – which is based on ancestry, ceremonies, songs, dance and land. Fay has lectured on art here and abroad, and managed exhibitions in America, the South Pacific and in Australia. She is a founding member of the National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association (NAISDA) and chaired this organisation for the first thirteen years of its life. It is from NAISDA that the internationally renowned Bangarra Dance Theatre was created – as Aboriginal dancers were not accepted into mainstream Australian dance companies at that time. Fay was also the Director of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board, headed the Aboriginal Women’s Unit in the NSW Department for Women, and currently is the Business Development Manager and Community Relations Manager in her daughter’s company, Yarn’n Aboriginal Employment Services, which helps find jobs for Aboriginal people and advises companies and governmental agencies on best practices for Aboriginal employees. Fay is also in the process of developing a children’s picture book based on spiritual links to this land.

http://www.yarnn.com.au/
http://www.naisda.com.au/

Photographer: Diane Macddonald
Location: Redfern, Sydney

Rosa Alpert

Rosa founded the charity organisation, The Sound World, to raise money to provide Cochlear implants for deaf children in the developing countries where this help is not provided by the government. Her organisation also puts pressure on governments and educational authorities to provide a proper framework for much needed cochlear implants, post-operative care, rehabilitation and educational development. It started in 2007, with two children in Russia and now continues to Armenia with future plans of Afganistan and Palestinian Authority. The Sound World is the Australian charity with unique activities of providing ongoing post surgery rehabilitation to help children with hearing disabilities to integrate into their new sound world.

http://www.thesoundworld.org/

Photographer: Diane Macdonald
Location: Sydney

Andrea Durbach

Born and educated in apartheid South Africa, Andrea practised as a political trial lawyer and human rights advocate, representing victims and opponents of apartheid laws.  In 1988 she was appointed solicitor to 25 black defendants in a notorious death penalty case in South Africa and later published an account of her experiences in Upington (Allen & Unwin 1999) which was short-listed for the Alan Paton Non-Fiction Award.  In the case of the Upington 25, the judge (there being no jury system in South Africa) applied the ‘common purpose doctrine’ and convicted 25 accused of the murder of one man, a black policeman; 14 of her clients were sentenced to death and her barrister, Namibian human rights advocate, Anton Lubowski, was assassinated a few months later. Soon after Anton’s murder, Andrea came to live in Australia returning to South African to conduct the appeal of the 25 in 1991; 21 of the 25 murder convictions were overturned and all the death sentences were commuted. The story of the Upington 25 has been made into a documentary, A Common Purpose, which won the 2011 Sydney Film Festival Audience Award for Best Documentary. Since arriving in Australia, Andrea has continued her fight for the rights of others, through her involvement and leadership in many organisations including: the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, the University of New South Wales Faculty of Law, the Administrative Decisions Tribunal and the NSW Law Reform Commission, and as Director of UNSW’s Australian Human Rights Centre. She is currently a member of the board of the NSW Legal Aid Commission, the editorial board of the Australian Journal of Human Rights and the Advisory Council of Jurists of the Asia-Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions. In May 2011, Andrea took up a 6 month part-time appointment as Deputy Sex Discrimination Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission. 

http://www.ahrcentre.org/

Photographer: Diane Macdonald
Location: University of New South Wales

Cath Jefferies

Cath founded Dance for Down Syndrome (D4DS) in 2010 - an association that raises funds and awareness through dance. Cath’s brother Phillip, has Down Syndrome. She saw the joy dancing brought him and somehow wanted to combine that feel-good factor with fundraising, while improving awareness about Down Syndrome, exposing the myths and fears surrounding it. Dance is a universal language without barriers and it was chosen especially because of that quality to express the ease with which people can connect with others. Cath designed this fundraising project to be a fun way to get children involved and bring a closer awareness of Down Syndrome to others in the community.

http://www.dance4downsyndrome.com.au/dancing/

Photographer: Diane Macdonald
Location: Sydney