by Sahar Foladi
Once there was a Mama who was grappling through the challenges of life. Now, she has become a beacon of hope for hundreds of others.
Announced as a winner on the 2025 Australia Day Honours List, Selba Gondoza-Luka doesn’t like to call herself the “boss” at her organisation Afri-Aus Care.
She rather prefers to be called a Mama.
“My job is not a job. When you have a job, you hate it (not all the time). When you have it at your core it’s your passion.
“When I’m at Afri-Aus Care I’m not a CEO, I’m a sister and a Mama.
“There’s no hierarchy and it helps the women not to feel inferior. Sometimes people will start introducing me as their boss, but no I’m their sister or Mama.”
She is awarded the honorary Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for her intense work in the African community through her organisation founded in 2015, built through her personal experiences after she migrated from Malawi in 2001.
Her family was struggling in every sense since the move but an unsupportive abusive husband, the loss of her baby who was only in this world for a few months after a premature birth, was the last straw. She attempted to take her own life as she slipped into postnatal depression.
“When people have problems or catastrophe in their lives instead of digging in the sand and sitting sad, it’s better to take the problem and find others who have the same problems.
“I know a lot of women are suffering from family violence, kids go off the rails – it all happened to me.
“My baby died but instead I took the experience and looked for people who went through what I went through.”
Later, a daughter Kwacha Luka stayed out of home in her early teens to avoid the problems and fell through the cracks.
Selba and her daughter are the symbol of not everyone is perfect but what you do with your circumstances will make or break you.
Kwacha, who is now a successful fashion designer, has seen the incredible journey of her mother and can’t express just enough of how proud she is.
“I have seen her when she was at her lowest. It’s been an amazing journey.
“From where she came from, she used to be very dependent on my dad. He was the main person that handled a lot of things at home.
“She was more vulnerable than I was, she lost her marriage etcetera – her lived experience is why she is able to do what she does now.”
She changed herself as a person and a mother, formed a healthy and positive relationship with her daughter, took her struggles and experiences to study the very thing that almost broke her – mental illness. And she worked with Monash Health in various settings.
“I worked with Monash community mental health service with South Sudanese children on several projects. This is where my eyes opened, where I saw a big gap between the youth and us the elderly,” Selba says.
“To do the work well, following UBUNTU values, seeing others in my shoes and having my own personal experiences as a family violence survivor, the inter-generational conflict with my daughter, my daughter suffering inter-generational trauma and when I was a psychiatric patient.
“Our young people have got rights without responsibility, which brings consequences.”
UBUNTU is all about connection to the community, to the family and with people because as Selba says, ‘I am because we are.’
She thanks God Jehova and her parents John Ned Gondoza and Ms Maness Gondoza for raising her the way they did.
“I learnt the UBUNTU values from my parents. Our homes have orphans and the less priviliged.”
A decade later, she has saved hundreds of families, as well as young people in and out of the justice system. Her UBUNTU Mama’s learn to regain control of their lives, form better relationships in their family unit and make better life decisions.
“We are still living in Africa in this generation having strict African values. In most cases it doesn’t work here.
“Most of the children come from school and lock themselves in their room, in isolation but in the same house.
“So, our work is trying to stop that isolation, and it works.”
Selba Gondoza Luka is not an unknown name in and outside of Victoria, especially in Greater Dandenong.
She’s renowned for her work with youth from the African communities to avoid anti-social behaviour and promote a sense of community, as well as working with their Mamas.
She also supports Mamas and babies from early pregnancy, providing guidance, support, stability and a sense of community though UBUNTU values.
Selba has worked with various Government departments and universities to further the opportunities available to African youth because “Australia is the land of opportunity and freedom”.
“If you don’t know how to find the opportunities, you will be lost.”
Passionate and driven to better provide for her community, she is unstoppable despite her busy calendar. She still finds time to go out to the Parkville Youth Justice Centre to cook and provide counselling to the young people in prison.
She mixes cuisines across the world to produce “beautiful food” all while teaching them the values of UBUNTU and treating others the way they want to be treated, with respect.
