By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Selba-Gondoza Luka hasn’t wasted her platform as Greater Dandenong’s Citizen of the Year 2021
This year, momentum and long hours have only grown for Ms Luka – the founder and CEO of Afri-Aus Care Inc, and co-founder of the Black Rhinos Basketball Club and Empowering African Women – Ubuntu in Practice.
Yet when nominated for the award, she gave herself little chance of winning.
In her eyes, she was still a “marginalised” leader whose work was “on the ground” and not on “social media”.
“Many people are saying that I deserve the award.
“My reply is do the same. Do good. When you’re in pain, help others in pain. Hold each other’s hands. Along the way, change other people’s lives.
“This is a good thing for African people to see – it gives people hope.”
Since the “big surprise” of the award on Australia Day, Ms Luka has continued to build on her work based on the African philosophy of Ubuntu.
It’s founded on connection. Strong relationships between people, their families and communities. ‘I am because we are’, seeing yourself in other people.
At 50, Ms Luka was suicidal, depressed, homeless and feeling like “nothing without a husband”.
She now sees herself in the mother whose child is in jail, or the wife who’s suffering violence at home and is at risk or is homeless.
She sees the urgent need to spread Ubuntu to save people, and to provide platforms and opportunities for people to be their best.
She wants more African women to rise and become citizens of the year like her.
“Before I had this award, I was not comfortable enough to approach some of the stakeholders.
“But with the award I’ve been able to introduce myself and the work I do.
“And I can tell them there’s a lot of African people who are working so hard at the grass-roots, doing great work for their communities but nothing much is known about them.
“In the African community, we’re hard workers. The only thing we’re lacking is resources and a platform to express our experiences.”
Ms Luka’s group at Afri-Aus Care helped create a safe place for women to share their most heart-breaking stories, grow organic African vegetables, cook and share meals at the community village in Springvale South.
Within a year, the Ubuntu Empowering African Woman project has supported more than 75 mothers and their families in Melbourne’s South East as well as the West via phone hook-up.
They hail from diverse South Sudanese tribes Neur, Dinka, Chollo, Anuak as well as other parts of the continent – Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia and Ethiopia.
Through story-telling, there’s a means to share taboo topics such as marriage breakdown, depression, anxiety and family violence.
Through their pain, they find a way to help others who are suffering, Ms Luka says.
“A woman without a husband is regarded being on the lower end of the scale. You’re seen as a failure.
“Most of the women shut down, they don’t talk about their issues because that’s what we are taught.
“We don’t have the elders here, you come here by yourself … so we’re creating our own Ubuntu Community Village in Springvale South and soon to go to other suburbs.”
The women learn not to be ashamed, to forgive the gossipers who bring them down and they understand they can seek mental health support.
They need good mental health to care for their children, Ms Luka says. As well as to use careful and active listening to improve their relationships.
“Traditionally, children are raised using strict African family values, unfortunately we have seen a lot of young people not listening to the elders.
“At the Community Village, mothers learn to balance using African family values with love. To treat their children as friends.
“The women need to know what to do when their children are facing discrimination or are depressed.
“Rather than go back and do what’s done to you, they need strategies to tell their children.”
Many of the women have found paid employment through the project, such as aged-care, disability care and customer care service.
In a bid to “employ the unemployable”, conversational English was taught, resumes were created and employers cold-called.
Kew-based Ability Works is one firm that’s providing work for the women.
A shuttle bus will ferry the women from the South East, with culturally-appropriate packed lunches provided by the Ubuntu Community Village.
There are hopes of Ability Works setting up an office in the South East.
The Ubuntu project is the focus of University of Melbourne research through The African Research and Engagement in Australia Initiative (AREiA).
This collaboration is developing an Ubuntu resource kit, with Ms Luka an advisory board member of AREiA.
The best programs come from a “bottom-up” and “strength-based” approach, Ms Luka said.
“Everyone else wants a small bit of what the Ubuntu has done for the women.
“We are boosting the economy. The women are working and paying tax. Their kids who ran away are coming home.
“How much money is otherwise spent on people in prison or living on social security?”
The project was funded as a community crime prevention project through Crime Prevention Minister Natalie Hutchins and the Department of Justice and Community Safety.
“The staff and the Mamas express their gratitude to Ms Hutchins for trusting a grass-roots organisation assisting African women.
“(Dandenong MP and Prevention of Family Violence Minister) Gabrielle Williams has been supporting our women who were affected by domestic violence.
“It is great to see that our leaders are interested in knowing the issues that are affecting the marginalised community members (youth at risk and their families), and they are offering real solutions.”
At a secondary college at Greater Dandenong, Ms Luka was invited to help address escalating racism and cyber bullying.
She worked to empower African-Australian students, imploring them to be “ambassadors for change”, leaders of today and strong.
Meanwhile, the Black Rhinos Club and Soccer Team programs for African youth continues. Last April its MMBL team won a trophy.
Ms Luka also works as a South East regional advisory member for the Victorian Multicultural Commission.
A staggering amount has been achieved in 2021 but not without Ms Luka working a punishing schedule.
“In a 24-hour day, I don’t have enough hours.
“Especially during lockdown, when the community in isolation needed a lot of support either food or culturally-appropriate counselling, people could call after hours and I had to be there for them.
“One cannot work like this unless you love what you do and I am driven by real results.
“I’m a woman motivated by change.”
Afri-Aus Care is seeking a warehouse in Dandenong to “create more opportunities for the community”.
Vans are also needed for distributing food aid, its gardening enterprise and work as an NDIS provider.
To help, go to afri-auscare.org or contact 0433526553.
