What do you hope for in 2010? When the Sydney Festival and ABC's Radio National posed that question to nine panelists, including a social justice activist, an indigenous leader, a university vice-chancellor who is also a priest, a Sudanese refugee and a recorder player, there were some very interesting answers.
Noel Pearson hopes a functional Australian republic will follow successful reconciliation. Yar Mayen hopes that her new life in Australia will be successful and peaceful. Millie Rooney hopes for a bumper crop of heirloom tomatoes. Get your hopes up: this event is full of ideas that will get you thinking about your future.
This event was filmed in the Angel Place Recital Hall, Sydney and was presented by the Sydney Festival and ABC Radio National, and is part of an ongoing Radio National project to get listeners to offer their hopes, fears and dreams for 2010.
Bio
Tanveer Ahmed
Tanveer Ahmed is a psychiatry registrar and writer. He is a former television journalist who is a regular contributor to the major circulars, primarily The Sydney Morning Herald.
While Ahmed has varied interests (he is an appointee to the Advertising Standards Board, has been a national representative for the Australian Medical Association, has been chosen as one of 100 future leaders of Australia, and has even appeared as a co-host on a prime time game show), he is most well-known for his writings on Islamic affairs and multiculturalism.
Eva Cox
Eva Cox AO is an Austrian-born Australian writer, feminist, sociologist, social commentator, and activist. She has been an active advocate for creating more civil societies.
She is a long term member of Women's Electoral Lobby. She is now involved in projects looking at social and ethical accounting for responsible business enterprises.
Wendy Harmer
Wendy Harmer is one of Australia's best known humorists.
She is a veteran of the Edinburgh, Montreal and Glasgow-Mayfest Festivals and has worked extensively in London, America and Ireland, appearing at the Edinburgh Festival five times. In 1990, her one-woman show "LOVE GONE WRONG" received a "Pick Of The Fringe" award and subsequently transferred to London.
Yar Mayen
Yar Mayen is a 20-year-old Sudanese refugee who came to Australia in 2006. She has just completed a nursing degree at the University of Notre Dame, Sydney and hopes in the future to become a doctor.
Mayen's homeland is Southern Sudan; however, she lived in Kenya from 1999 until arriving in Australia. Due to outstanding academic achievement, she was offered a scholarship to study in Canada but chose to relocate to Australia on a refugee VISA so she could remain with her siblings.
In 2010 she looks forward to beginning her career as a nurse and also returning to Sudan, for the first time in many years, to visit her mother and younger sister who she hasn't seen for 10 years.
Mayen lives with three of her siblings in Doonside in Sydney's west.
Noel Pearson
Noel Pearson was born in Cooktown and grew up at Hope Vale, a Lutheran Mission on south-east Cape York Peninsula. Noel Pearson is a history and law graduate from Sydney University.
He is the Director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, a body that drives new directions in public policy on indigenous issues.
Noel Pearson was involved in the establishment of the Cape York Land Council in 1990 and the other regional indigenous organisations representing the people of Cape York Peninsula, including Apumipima Cape York Health Council in 1994 and Balkanu Cape York Development corporation in 1996.
Noel Pearson works in a voluntary capacity as the Chairman of Cape York Partnerships, a project negotiated between the Queensland government and Aboriginal Leaders of Cape York to plan and implement projects centred on a reform agenda for Cape communities.
He also chairs the board of Cape York Partnerships Projects office and is a board member of Indigenous Enterprise Partnerships.
Noel Pearson’s current work draws widely on his thoughts on breaking down “passive welfare dependency” amongst Cape York Aboriginal people, by reinstating the rights of Aboriginal people to take responsibility for their lives. Descriptions of these ideas can be found in Pearson’s monograph Our Right to Take Responsibility (self-published, 2000) as well as his recent papers.
Sheila Pham
Sheila Pham was one of the contributors chosen to speak at the Sydney Festival Hope 2010 event in the City Recital Hall and on ABC Radio National.
She hopes to travel to Vietnam in 2010.
Millie Rooney
Millie Rooney is doing her PhD dissertation on the concept of 'delight not fright' at the University of Tasmania.
Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars is an American theater director, noted for his contemporary stagings of classical operas and plays.
Sellars is professor of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA, where he teaches Art as Social Action and Art as Moral Action.
Dr. Michael Spence
Dr. Michael Spence took up his appointment as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Sydney on July 11, 2008.
Dr. Spence is an alumnus of the University, having graduated with First Class Honours in English, Italian and Law (BA (Hons)'85 and LLB (Hons)'87). Before leaving for the University of Oxford in 1988 to undertake doctoral studies, Dr Spence lectured in Law at the University and also worked for the Australian Copyright Council.
At Oxford, Dr. Spence obtained his DPhil and continued to develop his career there over the next 20 years. He became a Fellow of St Catherine's College and a Lecturer of the University of Oxford in 1992. Three years ago he also obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in Theology from the University of Oxford.
Laurie Wallis
Laurie Wallis is the top NSW Higher School Certificate student and a poet.
Wallis reads widely, studying poetry from a variety of cultures and periods before writing his own poems which incorporated Japanese Haikai, a form of Haiku.
