One of the people who emailed me introduced me to someone from the Motorsport Masters in Cranfield University in the UK, which led to the offer of work experience at Mercedes F1, meeting some of the top people in motorsport in England.
Julianne was the catalyst for all of those life-changing experiences.
I followed the motorsport dream for a few years, until it didn’t quite fit as a career path. I moved my focus onto other areas in engineering, but am forever grateful for the experiences I had; the networks and friends I made are something I will always treasure.
The second thing Julianne did led to writing this book. It was a couple of years after that Age article came out and shortly after I had waved goodbye to the motorsport dream that I walked into a Design Council meeting exhausted, having just come off the rig. Julianne was curious and asked what it was like out there with all those men. I laughed and stories immediately came to mind; they were part of the experience of being a woman on the rig, which I had become accustomed to. ‘Well, yesterday, I walked onto the floor and one of the boys said to me “Hey, Yassmin, do you hear that ticking noise? It’s your biological clock. Better get onto it!”’
Julianne insisted that I write a story for the Griffith Review about my rig experiences for an issue on women and power the following year. I wasn’t sure if anyone would be interested but Julianne worked patiently with me and my dodgy internet connection at work, guiding me through three versions of the essay before it was ready for publication.
The essay was, to my surprise, a hit! We toured writers’ festivals with the Griffith Review, which opened doors to a whole new world and the rest, as they say, is history.
And by history I mean my entire world changed! I secured a literary agent and wrote a book proposal. I later enjoyed a whirlwind couple of days meeting publishers and being awestruck at the idea that they wanted to publish my story. Here I am, and here you are, Alhamdulillah.
I’ve been included on or invited to join many boards and management committees over the years and count myself fortunate, as each has taught me something different. Al-Nisa and Edgy Advisors taught me the importance of grassroots organisations. As I moved into university, being on the management committee of the Youth Affairs Network Queensland showed me the challenges faced by a peak body advocacy group that was trying to get the Queensland Government to change policy. My role with the Queensland Youth Council gave me an insight into advising government. I thought we, as the young people who had been brought in, would be asked what the main priorities were, but when we arrived the priorities had already been assigned. Indignant that my voice was being used to legitimise a list I didn’t know if I fully agreed with, I argued to have my priority added to the worklist. Needless to say, not much happened on that particular issue throughout the year.
As the years went on, I joined and left various other groups. The Australian Multicultural Council in 2012 was my first ever federal appointment and one that catapulted me into a level of politicking that was above my non-existent pay grade. I was encouraged by some leaders within the culturally and linguistically diverse communities to apply and so I did. Another case of a sponsor or mentor opening a door for me I didn’t realise was there.
Sometimes I took roles that weren’t as obviously connected to my core passions. I accepted a role on the ANZAC Centenary Commemoration Youth Working Group because I had grown up in Australia with the stories of the ANZACs but they didn’t seem relevant to me, and if I couldn’t engage, I doubted too many other Muslim kids could either – barring Turkish kids, perhaps.
So why have I taken on this series of roles? It comes back to capitalising on opportunities that will make life better and easier for those coming behind me. Every board, committee or council is a chance to encourage another sector of the community to consciously think about how their decisions affect young people, women, Muslims, people of colour, and to then have that organisation engage and affect those groups in a positive way. I love thinking strategically in diverse teams, wrestling with problems that require layers to be peeled back before a root cause is uncovered – and then crafting the strategy for the solution. I am heartened by the potential for positive change and even more enthralled when we achieve it.
I’m currently sitting on the board of ChildFund Australia, OurWatch and the Council for Australian–Arab Relations, as well as Youth Without Borders, the organisation I co-founded. I’ve also recently departed the UN Youth Australia board, a group I returned to after being involved as a volunteer years ago. Each role has been an opportunity that came by working the long game and ensuring that I took every chance I could along the way and knuckled down to make the most of it. Sponsorship only opens the door – once you are through, you also have to prove your worth. Never forget to work hard to earn your place – that was what I always reminded myself. But no one had ever challenged me in quite this way …
Back in the restaurant in Western Sydney, when I opened my mouth to answer, my thoughts were just as much for myself as for the two Muslim ladies interviewing me. ‘You know, there have definitely been moments when I have been the token person on a board. Being brought on as a part of some quota doesn’t mean that I have to stay that silent symbol. Once I’m at that table, I have just as much right to get involved in the discussion; I can sway the debate as much as anyone else. I can’t control the factors behind why they invited me on, but I can control what I do when I get there. If being a token is the easiest or only way in, then so be it. Once you’re there, show them you’re way more than they ever expected, hoped or bargained for.
‘At least this way, we can influence, we can show them an alternate perspective; we’re not sitting on the outside throwing rocks at the table but hitting the glass wall. We’re inside the room, sitting at the table and dropping rocks so big they can’t ignore them.’
It is tough constantly being a token contributor because you continually have to take into account the fact that you are not representing simply yourself as an individual, but the marginalised groups you are from. Even if you aren’t in an elected representative role, it becomes your responsibility. I know people in the Muslim community who would reject an opportunity because they didn’t want to be seen as selling out. These ladies were trying to understand how I was okay with constantly being on the edge of doing just that. I wondered if they thought I was selling out. They never said as much, but it was implied in their questioning. It is something I often think about. I guess constantly questioning ourselves, while having people around us who will keep us honest, is the best defence against betraying our own values.
‘How else are we going to access these decision-making places? It isn’t going to be by slowly crawling our way up the ranks – unconscious bias will take care of that.’
They may not have totally agreed with why I had chosen to live with the seeming compromise, but they understood and accepted my decision and believed I was working towards positive change. Those ladies are now some of my closest Sydney Muslim friends, and their perspective on life is always grounding.
As a member of many marginalised groups, I’ve just had to accept that, at the moment, we can’t be choosers. I will take up an opportunity, no matter how condescendingly it is provided, and try to find a way to make it work and to provide benefit not only for me, but for those behind me. It’s important to make sure that we pay it forward, so that the people who come after us can choose to be fussy about the packaging of the opportunity if they wish.
Chapter 15:
The Snowball
‘Dude, I won!’
‘OMG, no way! That’s awesome!’
‘I know! What on earth?’
It was 2007 and I’d just been named the Young Australian Muslim of the Year at a fancy event in Melbourne, so after the announcement, I’d snuck off to call Chandni in Brisbane. I couldn’t believe my name had been called. What did this award even mean?
‘We were very impressed by everything that you were doing at such a young age, a
nd all in Queensland,’ one of the judges said to me afterwards. ‘It’s much easier in New South Wales and Victoria, where there’s already a lot happening. You brought the hijab to your school in tenuous times, you were a founding member of the Al-Nisa Youth Group, started the Amnesty International chapter at your school, were vice captain, and you’re still so young!’ I couldn’t understand why people kept bringing up my age. Dude, I was sixteen. That was like, heaps old, hey.
This award was my first taste of the big time. Back in Queensland, I was featured on the front of the local newspaper, written about in magazines and photographed on the lawns of my high school, my chubby hijabied face grinning while I held up my award. I had made it!
My mother, bless her soul, was always looking towards the next step. ‘Okay, Yassmina,’ she said, pretty much as soon as the ceremony was over. ‘There’s so much we can do with this opportunity. We can’t afford to waste it!’
I had no idea what to do with it. I was already in a couple of other small advisory groups, off the back of my involvement with Al-Nisa. Being Deputy Chair of the Queensland Youth Council and sitting on the Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland (ECCQ), the Youth Affairs Network of Queensland (YANQ) and the Amnesty International Club at my school had been keeping me pretty busy. More importantly, I had my final high school exams coming up, so community work was taking a back seat while I figured out which career path I wanted to take. I loved technology studies and graphics, and really wanted to design cars, but thought law might be more useful, because then I could help people, right? Bond University’s ‘Law for a Day’ trial literally sent me to sleep, so I crossed that off the list. What kind of a word was ‘tort’?
I was scrolling through different course options when my mum gave me an application form for the Asia Pacific Cities Summit. For the first time, the Cities Summit was holding a youth forum alongside the major event. It was over four days, the four days before my QCST (Queensland Core Skills Test, the final year university entry exams), so the timing wasn’t ideal. I hurriedly completed the application form and sent it in with a sincere apology as the due date had already passed: ‘I only just heard about this but would love the opportunity.’
I got lucky. This was exciting. I’d never been to an international conference. The food would be halal, and because it was in my city my parents would let me attend! The biographies of the other attendees were all so inspiring. I felt out of my depth and giddy with anticipation.
I remember listening to the speech by the Young Queenslander of the Year, Lars Olsen, and being in absolute awe at what he had accomplished. He had set up an orphanage in Nepal – I couldn’t believe someone so young could do something so big! I jumped at the chance to chat with him afterwards; I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say so I just thanked him, and he was so kind and down-to-earth – I still remember the encounter clearly. This guy was super important, but was still cool enough to chat with me.
The rest of the conference wasn’t as gratifying. I had multiple conversations with others who were touting their organisation’s effectiveness, but they often felt disingenuous to me. I was struck by how many groups from similar areas were uninclined to work together. Whether young or old, people seemed more prepared to throw stones at other organisations than to share their resources. I’d realised this wasn’t uncommon in the NGO community, but that didn’t mean I needed to accept it.
As a forum, we discussed how crazy it was to have all these overlapping organisations. We talked about it at length, in between summit sessions and sandboarding. ‘That’s just how community work is,’ people kept telling me. A few shared my indignation, but we weren’t coming up with any workable solutions, and I was perplexed at the lack of motivation to actually do anything about an issue we all agreed was a problem.
It was only on the third and final night of the conference that I spoke to my mother. ‘I wish I could join something like Doctors Without Borders,’ I said as we sat at the dining room table, where we had been debriefing about the conference. I had recently discovered Médecins Sans Frontières and fallen in love with the message and ideal: travelling to far-off places, where I would face the dangers my parents had fled, to directly give back. Was this the migrant version of white guilt?
‘I want to be able to help but none of these groups want to work together!’
‘Yassmina, why don’t you do something about it?’
‘I guess I could try, but I don’t have a profession!’
‘What if you called it Youth Without Borders, and made your youth the strength?’
I sat back in my chair, considering. ‘That sounds pretty cool, Ma. I could see who would be interested tomorrow and we could start our own thing – focus on bringing groups together to share resources. I’m sure if we pooled grant money we could do all sorts of projects.’ My mind ran away with the possibilities.
Honestly, when I say I owe everything to my mother, it’s moments like these I’m thinking of. My mother has been the ultimate sounding-board, since she has a similar moral compass to me. She’s also an ideas person, so she synthesises what I vent and helps me come up with ways to alleviate the problem – even if sometimes all I want to do is vent! Even today, she still remains my favourite sounding-board, although our relationship has matured.
Occasionally I thought this dependence was a point of weakness or vulnerability, and I’d question whether I was just a young conduit for my mother’s ideas. I was weighed down with guilt because I would receive an award and think, I didn’t do it alone; you should be giving the award to my mum. The truth is the story of Yassmin and Youth Without Borders is incomplete without the story of Yassmin’s mum. We are told to honour individual heroes – Mark Zuckerberg, Thomas Edison, Taylor Swift – but, in reality, each individual has a huge group of people behind them, supporting them, giving them ideas, guiding them along the way. The belief that one person can do it all by themselves is the epitome of individualism and I think ignores who we are as humans. As Derek Sivers, an American writer and entrepreneur, says in his impressive TED talk, when starting a movement it is in fact the first follower who transforms the lone nut into a leader. It’s important we remember that the community and the people around us are those who enable us to do what we do.
The final day of the forum was a trip to Tangalooma Island in order to showcase the beauty of Queensland to our international guests. We played with dolphins – one of my bucket list items, along with skydiving and visiting every continent. On the way back from the island I sat on the boat deck, staring up at a night sky in full starry glory. I gathered my wits and went into the main cabin to throw my idea into the mix.
‘We can’t let this be another talkfest!’ was a sentiment being bandied about by the group as they discussed where-to-next. ‘What are we going to do then?’ There was a general hubbub but not much focus.
‘Hey, guys, I have an idea!’ Some faces turned towards me, while others continued their conversations unperturbed.
‘What if we set up an organisation that is simply about how to get us to work together and pool our resources? We’re obviously all doing cool things –’ I motioned to a couple of friends I had made over the last few days who were artists and social workers – ‘and I’m sure we could learn from each other and do much bigger things if we worked together?’
My suggestion was almost instantly laughed out: ‘Oh no, it’s so hard to start a new organisation. Do you have any idea how difficult it is?’
‘We’re all too different, anyway.’
‘You want to start an organisation that gets other organisations to work together so people don’t start their own organisation?’
‘You’re only sixteen!’
About ten people out of the hundred were interested. Three were from Brisbane and together we formed the first Youth Without Borders (YWB) group.
I pitched the idea on behalf of the Youth Summit at the closing ceremony of the Asia Pacific Cities Summit. Presenting the concept at City Hall meant th
at all sorts of dignitaries heard about the organisation and Brisbane City Council offered us free office space for three months at a location in the Valley. Only a few years after my big Socialist Alliance speech I was returning to the Valley in pursuit of making a difference, this time under my own steam.
Our first YWB meeting was on 16 September 2007. We used a non-traceable chatting service, well before that became cool, to discuss the objectives of the organisation.
One of my co-founders, Anthony, was a twenty-one-year-old Sri Lankan economics student, intensely interested in the economics of development, who brought a sense of rigour and evidence-based thought to the organisation. Anthony and I both lived on the southside of Brisbane, so he would drive us to the meetings in the Valley.
‘I’m just going to warn you,’ he said to me the first time he picked me up, ‘I like changing lanes a lot.’ I laughed. I can handle speed, I thought, but I had no idea what I was in for. As Anthony was ducking and weaving, he talked about the structure of YWB and how we needed to make sure that we focused on collaboration as we had said that we would, rather than trying to come up with solutions ourselves. I nodded as my knuckles turned light brown from gripping the door handle.
Lucy, the other co-founder, was also twenty-one, and she was responsible for the inclusion of young people at the Asia Pacific Cities Summit. She was working with Brisbane City Council and had lobbied hard to have a youth forum or a youth contingent included in the summit.
I have so much love for Lucy, more than I think I ever expressed as we set up YWB. She held us to account and was never afraid to tell Anthony and me what needed to be done. She was thorough, and knew what was required regarding registration, our finances, the paperwork, and how to do things properly. She was also funny and had an amazing laugh that would fill the space with joy.
Lucy and Anthony were the best things that could have ever happened to YWB and I owe them a lot. As co-founders, we all brought something different to the group: I brought the youthful enthusiasm; Lucy, a policy and governance rigour that ensured we were all above board; Anthony, development thinking and often playing devil’s advocate to ensure we tried to do things the best way possible. Even though they were both older than me, we were always peers.
Yassmin’s Story Page 19