These are the unsung heroes celebrated in the Australia Day Honours
Mental health nurse Francis Acquah has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his decades of work improving community wellbeing.
Source : sbs
From a stigma-shattering mental health nurse to a renowned sculptor, these little-known Australians have been recognised for their achievements.
This year, 739 people have been inducted into the prestigious Order of Australia for their contributions to the community.
Among those, ranging in age from 32 to 100, are well-known faces such as television presenter David Koch and Paralympic swimmer Ellie Cole.
But there are also the quiet achievers, those unsung heroes and champions of community.
Francis Acquah OAM: The ‘accidental’ mental health nurse
With his colourful suit, bold blue glasses and friendly smile, Francis Acquah immediately makes a positive impression.
His can-do attitude has proved a steady guide through 37 years of demanding work in frontline mental healthcare, with a focus on helping migrants and refugees.
Born in Ghana, the 66-year-old says a chance visit to a psychiatric hospital while a nursing student in London proved life-changing.
‘Why don’t you talk to people instead of washing bedpans?’ he realised.
“I haven’t looked back in 40 years.”
Acquah moved to Melbourne’s north in 1986, where he admits the mental health system was at the time “quite backward”, and later joined one of the first crisis assessment teams in Victoria.
Today, he runs the Positive Wellness Recovery Centre across several locations in Melbourne, including a converted church dating back to the 1860s.
As well as offering case-by-case mental health support, and NDIS assistance, community activities include regular drumming and dancing, to cater for multicultural communities where stigmas remain around mental health.
“This is an opportunity to do a lot of the preventative work, getting the community involved in activities that improve their mental wellbeing,” Acquah said.
Acquah has returned many times to his native Ghana to share his expertise. Among other projects, his foundation has worked to renovate a psychiatric ward.
Lindy Lee AO: The groundbreaking artist
Outside the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Lindy Lee’s work shines bright.
The shimmering metal and intricate details on Secret World of Starlight Ember are enjoyed by thousands of tourists each year.
“A lot of my work evokes the connection between humanity and the cosmos,” the prolific artist told SBS Mandarin News from her home in Byron Bay.
“Cosmos is the length, depth and breadth of everything that has ever existed, exists right here now and will exist into the future, and none of us can fall outside of that web.”
Born in Brisbane in 1954 to Chinese immigrants who fled that country’s communist regime, Lee’s works often reflect her lived experience of clashing cultures.
“Growing up under The White Australia Policy, there was a real sense of not belonging,” Lee said.
“And so a lot of my work starts out with this [question]: ‘What is it? Who am I’?”
Her works are also strongly influenced by Buddhism and Taoism, concepts that helped her find her identity.
“If you’re talking about the idea of cosmos … we belonging is our birthright,” Lee explained.
Before being inducted into the Order of Australia, Lee was already honoured as the subject of Tony Costa’s 2019 Archibald prize-winning portrait.
“I think being an artist or just being human, the only job you have is to step up and be thoroughly yourself, whatever that is,” she said.
“Me receiving this award is not just important for me, but it’s more important as an acknowledgement that the likes of me, with this Chinese face, in this culture, can actually achieve and that I’m part of this culture as all migrants are.”
Dr Kelvin Kong AM: The pioneering surgeon
Australia’s first Indigenous surgeon Dr Kelvin Kong said he was “certainly honoured and humbled,” upon receiving the Medal of the Order of Australia.
“But I don’t profess that this is my work, this is a whole lot of work by the community,” he told NITV.
Working from Newcastle in NSW, Kong is a renowned ear, throat and neck surgeon focussed on fighting middle ear disease, which impacts Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children at higher rates than any other group.
His work has taken him to remote communities across Australia, where the disease affects up to 70 per cent of children.
“Every kid in Australia deserves a chance to have their dreams, and it shouldn’t be inhibited by your postcode or who you are or your access to health care,” Kong said.
“My kids haven’t escaped the disease. They have the same kind of issues that every other kid has. And what we need to do is make sure we break down those boundaries.”
His late mother, Grace Kinsella, was a pioneering nurse, charting a path for him and his two sisters to excel in the medical field.
Kong credited her “belief and drive” to see her kids prosper behind his success.
“Watching from above, this would mean the world to her.”
Majida Abboud-Saab OAM: Voice of the Community
For decades, Majida Abboud-Saab was a broadcasting stalwart on SBS Radio.
A founding volunteer when the broadcaster was established as an experiment in “ethnic broadcasting”, she later served as deputy station manager and executive producer of the Arabic Language section.
“It felt like it was my home,” Abboud-Saab told SBS Arabic News about working at the broadcaster during those groundbreaking early years.
“We had our finger on the pulse of communities, and we were able to reflect their needs, their aspirations, their problems, and their successes,” she said.
Abboud-Saab was a founding member of the Arab Council of Australia. A trusted voice within the community, she also broke major stories – with a notable series of reports in 2005 on efforts to free detained Australian engineer Douglas Wood from Iraq.
For her, the role of SBS was not just to entertain and inform non-English speakers and new migrants, but to actively strengthen the national psyche and democratic process.
“I think multicultural media is very important to be able to help people settle successfully, help people work through identity issues and help people be good citizens.”
Additional reporting from Emma Kellaway, Shiyue Liu, an Assia El Moussawi.
