Community leader and “powerhouse” Nika Suwarsih knows full well how hard it is to build a new life in Australia.
For 19 years, an ebullient, inspired Nika has turned her own struggles into a positive – tirelessly volunteering and supporting other migrant women to “feel at home”.
“If we think easy then everything will be easy. So I choose positive thinking, then positivity comes to us.”
On Australia Day, Nika received City of Greater Dandenong’s Community Leadership Award – its most prestigious award – which makes her feel “blessed” and “grateful”.
The training manager at not-for-profit SisterWorks is proud that she “empowers” migrant women, refugees and asylum-seekers to find work and gain economic independence.
Many of the “sisters” are initially lonely, depressed, impoverished and hampered by language barriers.
But a stunning 84 per cent of the trainees are placed in work with corporate partners such as L’Oreal, which has a warehouse in Dandenong South.
SisterWorks chief executive Ifrin Fittock describes Nika as a “powerhouse” in leading their Dandenong Empowerment Hub.
“Nika puts her heart and soul into the work,” Ifrin says.
“It comes from having an understanding and a feel for the challenges for the women.”
Nika’s greatest inspiration is her late grandma, who looked after her from infancy to adulthood and taught her independence.
Arriving from Indonesia with just her husband in 2007, Nika undauntedly faced the challenge of knowing no one.
She knuckled down to study again and to find work while her psychology degree from Indonesia was unrecognised in Australia.
She worked in factories, took English-language classes, gained a diploma of counselling, and volunteered generously while pregnant and later with two young sons in tow.
She first helped as president of the Indonesian Society of Victoria.
Later she founded the Womens Association South East Melbourne Australia (WASEMA) Friendship Café and playgroup in Dandenong North to counter the scourge of loneliness among her peers.
She has organised at volunteer groups such as Multicultural Playgroup Victoria, Indonesian Women’s Friendship Network Australia, and the Mental Health Professional Network Dandenong.
Currently she’s president of Jembatan Poetry Society, in which poems in a variety of languages are read and shared.
She gains joy from Greater Dandenong’s famous multiculturalism – the sharing of languages, cultures and foods.
Nika’s latest award adds to a glittering collection including a 2018 Victorian Premier Volunteer Champion Award and 2020 Indonesian Consul General Award.
But it isn’t the glittering CV that gives her life meaning.
“Helping people makes me happy,” she says.
