Them Heavy People The Brown Council

Jackie Leewai has been a dedicated and dutiful advocate for diversity and inclusion in her role at SBS Australia as Community Engagement and Partnerships Manager.

Arriving to Australia at the age of two and born in the capital of Suva, Fiji – Jackie comes with generations of mixed race heritage. Her dad is Chinese and (Melanesian) Fijian, her mum is Indian-Fijian, Nepalese with Jewish ancestry on her grandmother’s side, something not yet explored. Her interests in race and international relations, politics and the media are both personal and professional. How do you discern it when it is such a strong part of your tapestry, and what does it mean for the next generation of Leewais?

Sonia Mehrmand is passionate about the arts, access, history and advocacy. As a coordinator at Diversity Arts Australia, she is able to combine all these passions in one place.

Born in the USA to an Iranian father and Italian mother, Sonia was always aware that she was never fully here, nor there. Or anywhere for the matter. Especially with parents who are fiercely attached to their cultural identities.

Alana Hicks is a Papua New Guinean-Australian writer, director and digital producer. Alana spearheaded three seasons of the online sketch comedy series The Kvetch Set Sketch Collective. She received the Writing NSW Early Career Writer’s Grant for a TV series in development “Home is a Foreign Country”, and recently was awarded state and national production funding for her short film “Chicken”, currently in post-production. In summary, Alana is super talented. On this night, Alana muses on how to straddle multiple cultures, how to connect, and how to be at home with yourself, all the while reminiscing about that time her high school debate team insisted on coming over to her place, and they saw and experienced more than they bargained for.

Bina Bhattacharya is an award-winning Writer and Director living in Campbelltown. Her father is a Bengali Indian Professor of Political Economy and her mother is a white Australian Historian born in Adelaide.

Bina credits her distinctive voice and sensitivity to growing up with two cultures, being exposed to Satyajit Ray and 80s Bollywood through her father and opera and Australian folk music through her mother. Her short films “Wild Dances” and “Musings” have resonated with audiences in festivals all over the world, with themes of diaspora, queer identity, motherhood, alternative lifestyles, regional identities and class and race tensions.

Bina runs her own production company, Gemme de la Femme Pictures, with her also-mixed-race husband and is the mother of a “Fil-Indian-Scots-Stralian” four-year-old boy.

Ravi is formerly a strategist who’s award winning career spans over 20 years, working in advertising including for Leo Burnett, John Singleton Advertising and Ogilvy & Mather. In 2013 Ravi shifted the focus of his life and work to pursue his interest in social justice and civil society.

His current project is Social Catering by Parliament on King. It addresses the barriers to social, cultural and economic participation faced by asylum seekers and refugees, by offering training, work experience and paid employment to asylum seekers and refugees – funded by the proceeds of its commercial catering operations. The project has been recognised with awards including a Refugee Council Humanitarian Award and the Good Food Guides ‘Food for Good Award’. Ravi is also the recipient of a UTS Human Rights Awards.

Ravi talks about being mixed race, his name, and the stories a name can bring.

Not only did Aunty Muhammad and Aunty Amar- aka 2 Boys In Saris serve food on this night, they also brought a brand new performance to stage. The Aunties will be exploring the notion of belonging, queer identity and the South Asian family through imagining a “seat at the table”. Be prepared for the disjointed sadness of Aunty Amar’s spoken word poetry, juxtaposed with Aunty Muhammad’s rendition of an Etta James 1968 classic.