Nalika Padmasena has won the Premier’s Harmony Award for her outstanding work helping women suffering from family and domestic violence. Photo: Edwina Pickles
For Sinhalese migrant Nalika Padmasena her work helping women from culturally diverse backgrounds to speak about domestic and family violence, helped to ease her own homesickness.
Arriving from Sri Lanka during the unrest of the mid-1990s, Ms Padmasena took her mind off her own troubles by helping other women to open up and get help for an issue which has long been considered taboo in many cultures.
Her dedication was recognised on Thursday night when Premier Mike Baird awarded her the prestigious Stepan Kerkyasharian AO Harmony Award in front of more than 1300 people at the annual dinner at Rosehill Gardens Racecourse.
Mr Baird said the award recognised the work she has done “to inform female migrants of their legal rights while providing safe environments for them to speak out about domestic violence”.
It is the fourth annual harmony awards and dinner and this year six people were also recognised for their contribution to multiculturalism with medals.
The Youth Award was won by Sarah Yahya for helping Mandean refugees, the Youth Encouragement Award by William Ho for advocating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender rights. The Lifetime Community Service Award was won by Ruben Amores, the Arts and Culture Award by Paroula Galelis-Thurban for championing the understanding of Greek culture through language and dance. John Kutte Moi won the regional communities award for representing the African community in Wagga Wagga and Jim Feng won the Economic Participation Award for enhancing collaboration between Australia and China establishing a technology INVESTMENT
committee.
Minister for Communities and Citizenship, Victor Dominello, said the Harmony Dinner is an opportunity to showcase the rich heritage of our many multicultural communities and celebrate shared values.
Ms Padmasena told Fairfax Media that because migrant women are quite often isolated from their own families, it can make it even harder for them to talk about what they may be going through.
“One case that sticks in my mind is a woman who never spoke at all. She would come and attend our group but would not say a word.”
Eventually, with help, the woman felt safe enough to reveal the horrendous physical and psychological abuse she had suffered over many years. She told Ms Padmasena she was so isolated she was not even allowed to socialise with other people. Her hobby of traditional craftmaking was also banned by her then husband who would destroy any craftwork he found.
Ms Padmasena said the work she undertook was “very emotional” and she understood the isolation felt by migrant women having arrived in Australia with just her husband and no other family.
“In a way helping them was a way of dealing with my own homesickness. I missed my country a lot,” she said.
