Latest / WHAT I'VE LEARNT / What I've Learnt - Ayuol Manyok

Transcript

What I've Learnt - Ayuol Manyok · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Her striking face, sky-high cheekbones, deep dimples, and full lips plastered across banners on trains, town halls, and adorning Melbourne fashion festival venues across the city, Kenyan Chadwick's model, Ayul Maniok, has embraced the opportunities life has offered since starting her life in Australia as a young girl.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: One of five siblings who arrived with her single mother from Wartown, Africa, when she was barely five, Ayul has no illusions about work, survival, and the importance of finding her voice.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: An avid reader and educator, as well as an in-demand model for some of the biggest names in the business, from Madachewski to Sassan Bide, she is articulate, informed, and equipped to follow her path and carve out her destiny.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: With passion, persistence, and the power of youth, beauty and a fierce intelligence.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: She says, I think it's pivotal to record the scenarios, the stories, the events, so you don't have other people misrepresent your story.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: She reflects intergenerational trauma is a lot of what the South Sudanese in the diaspora experience.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: I learned something today about intergenerational trauma.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: With the Holocaust they discovered three generations later, they could link trauma back to that effect.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: She reflects on her community, the blessing and at times curse of being a black African woman in the heartland of Australia, and the importance of leadership for her community to evolve and adapt while still respecting and honouring their history and tradition.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Ayul is brave, beautiful and bold, and at 22 has only just begun.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: So watch this space.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot more to come.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: So this month, my weekly podcasts come to you courtesy of the Witchery White Shirt Day campaign, raising funds for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Shirts created by designers including Tony Mataceski are gracing everyone from ambassadors, comedian Celeste Barber, to politicians like Julia Bishop.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: So go grab your own white shirt from Witchery and Camilla and Mark stores across the country.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Every dollar helps fund urgently needed research into the treatment of this insidious disease, which affects over 300,000 women daily worldwide.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yet no early detection test exists.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: For the sake of our sisters, daughters, mothers, and grandmothers, let's get this early detection test to clinical trials in five years and save millions of women globally.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: We can do this.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Over it, let's talk about them.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we'd like to welcome Ayol Manyok to the What I've Learnt podcast.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Very excited to have you come visit us to chat to all our listeners about your extraordinary journey.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't wait to hear your story because the parts that I do know sound really interesting.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you're quite young, but sounds like you've done a lot in your reasonably short life.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me a little bit about how you ended up here in the land of Oz and where you come from.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Firstly, thank you for having me, Deborah.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so my journey to Australia started off with being a Kenyan-born South Sudanese um child.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I was born in one of the biggest refugee camps in the world, which is in uh Kakuma, which is just northwestern of Nairobi, which is the capital.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And through the UNHCR Commission, la la la blah blah and the collaboration that they did with the Australian government, my family was granted a humanitarian visa.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And through that route, we were able to relocate and migrate to Perth, Western Australia.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: And in in part of my identity as well, I am an Australian citizen.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that will be 17 years now almost since that journey.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: So how old were you when you when you first got to Australia?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Between like five, six around.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So young.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you've been in Australia for quite a while.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, and how many family members do you have, Jeff?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So my mum came with us, so she came by herself with five children, including myself.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: What an extraordinary woman.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: So she must be major inspiration.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: How how old were the kids?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Were they all under?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Were you were you?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I think my eldest sibling was around, I'm gonna say 16, 17.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've got a Ting, who is my sister, she's maybe 15, 14, Cho was about 10, and then Woody was about maybe four, yeah.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: So your mother came as a in effect a single mum with five children and landed in Australia, having come through a refugee camp, is an extraordinary story, really.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And as you said, she's definitely a source of inspiration for me for sure.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so, what did you learn from your mum?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, watching how she managed, and and you know, you were young, but still, you know, you must have learned a lot from this thing.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: What's her name?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: What was your mum?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: What's your mum's name?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: My mom's name is Adala Yangador.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Adal, that's her name.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful, beautiful name.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and tell me a little bit about what you learned from her.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: She must have been quite an inspiration.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Continues to be.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm only starting to tap into the wisdoms of my mum because I don't know if you know, but what teenagers tend to do is push away the people that are really trying to help them, essentially.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the biggest things I've learned through my mum is resilience, and that's something that I've learned through other avenues.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I think when it comes to my mum, that's really, really heightened because I saw the way in which she raised us, I saw the way in which she carried herself, I saw the way in which she served and was a steward to community.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, a lot of those senses of being around others, I learned from her.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and how have you applied these in your own life?
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like obviously, I know you're a model and you're working with Chadwicks, and we'll get to all that and the extraordinary um work that you're doing in that arena.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: But my brief research of you um indicates that you're quite the reader and you're quite somebody who likes to be informed and and and basically don't actually take things at face value.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Is this something that you learned from your mum?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and also you mentioned the community reference.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me a little bit about that because clearly it's a very strong community.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: I love to read, and the reasoning of having moved to Australia and having the opportunity to move Australia to Australia is education.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: So my dad talks about.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I met my dad for the first time in a round four, maybe 16 years, 15 years, two years ago when he came to Australia.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he would argue that he fought in the war because he was giving us an opportunity to be educated later on in life.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So education is a value that my both my mom and dad hold.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I've kind of internalized that through ways of osmosis or just like straight being nagged to do work all the time, constantly through my life.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, like reading what I found reading to do for me is give me the capacity to use words and to understand language so I can better communicate myself to people and to understand myself even more because a lot of the time there is a deficit of language, and another thing that reading has been able to do is allowed me to explore different ways of knowing and different ways of understanding the world because it's not all monolithic.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're we're a very diverse world, and I think I would be doing myself a disservice as an individual in the world if I just focused on my little happening in Melbourne, Australia right now.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's quite important to to seek other knowledges wherever they come from, even if you don't take them in to just critique them and see how they are of value.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So really you see yourself snapshot.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, that makes a lot of sense.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, really what you're saying is you're a global citizen that you see yourself as having a global responsibility and a sense of community beyond yourself.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Period.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I would say I see myself as a life learner.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the day that I think I've known it all, I've kind of lost it all.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because who am I to say I know it all?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I absolutely do not at all, especially at 22, absolutely not.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: No, but you seem to be very intelligent and informed, and I I can see that it's something that you don't take for granted either.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe that's a byproduct of where you've come from and the way I I gather that your dad stayed in in um Sudan, yes, absolutely.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sudan because he was actually, is that because he was fighting and therefore your mum what was how much time do you have?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Don't worry, there's always a story.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: And and it may, you know, but but really she came here with five children on her own and was here for six years, but he did eventually join your dad came and stayed, or has he gone back?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's gone back, he came to visit, so he's got other families as well back home to Australia.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're the only family that moved to Australia, yeah.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so just coming back to your learning, I actually was, you know, having a little look and I saw that you read a combination of um, you're obviously very gender aware and um have a real sense of the gender lens and how women need to be well represented and better represented.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I also saw that you had, you know, you read African history, a bit of Brene Brown.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: I just saw because you post um on your Instagram, I saw this whole sort of stream of reading.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, oh, I'm gonna love this girl because she's just like really into exploring um where books can take you.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Can you talk to me a little bit about some of the things that interest you and why they interest you?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think the culture that I've come from, like a South Indianese Dinka culture, you know, when you're growing up, you do have, you know, your idea of who you are.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: You have this small self-awareness, and then there are things that happen, events, experiences, um, and you don't really have the language to articulate what's going on for you.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, what reading has done, especially reading gender studies, queer studies, um, African history in its multitude, is helped me put language.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's given me a way to attach myself to my my memories of like growing up, you know, my girlhood in Australia and what that has meant.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I think reading is super important.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think reading is important for a multitude of things, you know, you know you know how to articulate yourself better in terms of like speaking and then as well as writing, and those are all important to be literate.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think that is like fundamental uh wherever context you are in.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: However, for me, it's just been able to help me heal as well.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we don't know some of the things that you experienced, you know, you can't really confront them.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have language for them, you can't explain to a therapist, you can't explain to other people, and you can't grab somebody else's hand and be like, hey man, I've been through this before, I know what this is, and the language is X, Y, Z.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, in in short form, that's why I think reading is it's incredible.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so you found great comfort from that, but also you refer to healing.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: That implies that um there's some sort of trauma that you need to heal from.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what you're referring to?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a sense that you've been, is it is it the transition?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is it what you understood and experienced from your background?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me a little bit about that because I'm um I'm curious how how that has affected you.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's so interesting that we're having this podcast right now because I just came back from a trauma-based um PD from the school that I work at.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And intergenerational trauma, definitely.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's something I and a lot of South Sudanese people who live in Australia, who live abroad, who live in that in the diaspora have experienced because I think the South Sudanese experience is quite unique.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have this the longest civil war in history, and then you have people migrating to neighboring countries, and then you have them migrating to the West, where it's predominantly white colonial settler states, and you've got to deal with other things, and then in the white imagination, you are black, but when you're back home, you're just like another regular African person that lives within, you know, so it's like it's different, different you're faced with different challenges in each setting.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I've just kind of like had to understand why my mum was the way she is, why she dealt with things the way she did.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've had to reject some of those because I know they no longer serve me, which is a lot of the gender stuff definitely do not serve me.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and then and then there's the the way she's parent.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: She's a great parent, by the way, but I know the things that I will not continue to bring into my practice when that happens, inshallah.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, like reading is a source to go to, it's a resource to go to in that way to reinvent yourself.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And these things are not easy to break, especially intergenerational trauma.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I'm gonna be completely abdicated of all my trauma.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: But can I mitigate that?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Possibly, possibly, yeah.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's interesting, the idea of an oral history and and what you lost coming um from a war-torn country.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me, talk to me about that.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's pivotal to record the stories, the scenarios, the events from the people who are experiencing it.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: So you do not risk other people misrepresenting you and telling your stories and probably owning your stories.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I totally come from that space and agree with you.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Documenting through your lens, my sort of that's my mission in life is to give people the the facility to do that.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: So because you'd come out absolutely your family had come from a war-torn environment, not dissimilar to many Holocaust survivors, as I referred to, many of whom I write their stories for them and help them with recollection.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, Steven Spielberg did it with the Shower Foundation.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: That is, in essence, and not just uh the Holocaust.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: He did the Rwandan genocide, they recorded a lot of the uh stories from survivors there too.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's a very good point you make, which is the notion that you you make sure that you get to tell your story because otherwise somebody else will tell it for you.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I just wanted to um give you a little learning, but I learned something today, and it was the impact of intergenerational trauma.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: They did a study on the Holocaust survivors and how still three generations after they could still link traces of trauma back to that event, and that's that is the significance of intergenerational trauma.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something that is you know you can just wipe out in one generation, absolutely not.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: And was the context of that learning was that in the context of the Sudanese story, or is that is that how you learned about that, or was it just something you were reading or the context of Sassanese?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, intergeneration, yeah, yeah, or intergenerational.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: That was yeah, so that was through a professional development that I did.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're talking around intergenerational trauma, and the example was through the Holocaust and how that still impacts people till this day.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely in 2021.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And there are plenty of people that I know, and I'm sure you know, that um are still trying to heal those wounds and find a way through that.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's also the the um the power of memory is is huge.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why um, as a documentarian myself, whether it be through memoir or podcast, I believe very much in that notion.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope that as you mentioned, you were saying you you're you're writing down things that your mum tells you and you're keeping them.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: I have to, even the things that my father said, because Southanese people haven't really lived in Australia for that long.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maximum, I would say 20, 25 years, and that is not a long time.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: No for yeah, and the biggest migration occurred, I would say it was during the Howard administration, and that was maybe your 2003, 2004, and there was an influx of South Sudanese people, and now we are we're seeing the birth of the first generation South Sudanese Australians.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're starting to see that now, and it's it's a unique, it's a very unique identity, it's a very unique identity of how we got here and why we are here.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it is yeah, I think it would be inconceivable to not document our own stories in Australia and what that means for us.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because someone else, and that classic example, these always have already been told about who we are in Australia.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's already occurred, and that will continue to occur if we don't transgress and we we we push back against those who want to make stories about us.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I think you're right.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, obviously it's a complex story, it's never straightforward, and it's a question of whose lens is put on that story and who's the voice and all of that.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and do you feel confident that the story is being told by community effectively, or do you think it needs a lot of work in that regard?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you talk to any South Sudanese person who's around my age, they will agree with the notion that our community is fragmented, and I think that's how other voices have been able to infiltrate and say things and create stories about us, and it's very hard for us to mobilize and say, hey, actually, that's not who we are, because of the various reasons, and we're still coming along, and as I said, we're still children on this land, we're only 25 years in.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: But my hopes now is that as we become more educated, we understand and we really truly go back to our roots, which is community and how important that that togetherness, that bond, that cohesion is actually a strength for us and how much we need it here if we are to continue to live here as a people, if that's what we so choose to do.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so you make reference to the um to the school or to the trauma, uh, what you were just referring to, that you've just come from a trauma session.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Is that you being somebody who's helping other school children?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Or is that what's the context of that?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I work full-time as an education support at a school here in Western Melbourne.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it's in that context.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: So you that's part of your, in a way, your um your wish to serve and to be part of a community and part of that education process of of of helping others in your community.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a great setting.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: It, you know, I think yes, there is an aspect of me helping others, but then like at the same time, like I see myself in a lot of these kids because they the they come from countries in the horn and they look like me.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember being legitimately those kids in education back in Perth, Western Australia.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I see myself in them.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a it's a bit of both.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's reciprocity in it.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, beautiful.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's a there's a mutual benefit, and you learn from each other.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: On that note, it's it is interesting, okay.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: We can talk about the fact that first of all, your face has been everywhere through the Melbourne Fashion Festival.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, we're talking banners, trams, tram stops, town halls, like the whole festival.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: You have been really, you know, really quite a pivotal part of that.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and yet, so in light of what you've been referring to, in terms of being somebody from Sudan in Australia, being an Australian and trying to carve your own journey and identity, this is a huge step because you really um have been uh revered and respected as somebody that heads up the Melbourne Fashion Festival.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's a wonderful uh exemplification of what maybe we're now moving into this fantastic new era where it supports people from all different walks of life.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: And diversity is going to be just part of what we see everywhere.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: How does that how's that been for you?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Has that been quite interesting to see yourself reflected back like that?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I love it.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: I love the idea of because usually that wouldn't happen.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: It would be, you know, creating some form of art that you did yourself, and then you are reflecting yourself back to yourself.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: But to to be a part of something of that magnitude during a time that we are living in, and to have like South Sudanese people.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I only moved to Melbourne like a year ago, and to have South Sudanese people who I've known for like less than a year, even send me messages and be like, dude, I saw you.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: That it's been incredible.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And like going back home and people being appreciative and just being excited for you.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And like the other day, my friend was telling me that she met some South Sudanese girls in the city, and she asked them, Have you seen the banners?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's my friend.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Yeah, we took photos, and these were like high school students, and that that excites me.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's kind of who I do it for.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: I that's I would say that's who I do it for.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: For them to see reflections of themselves.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, because it actually then also um uh mirrors back to them, mirrors back to yourself, but also it's a sense that do you think the change is here now?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: I feel very strongly that you know that wouldn't have happened five years ago, even you know, maybe 10 years ago, definitely not.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: But this is who we are, and as Australians, we are multicultural, we are diverse.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: So to me, it's very logical, but I think to get it through the system and the bureaucracy um has taken time.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would I would love to think that's where we are headed.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would love to think that's I have a little sense of hope there that that's where we're headed, especially with the campaign that I just did with Melbourne Fashion Festival, definitely.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And did that come about because um somebody approached you?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know obviously you're I don't know how long you've been with Chadwicks, but not that long.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: This will be so Chadwick's in Melbourne, a year, but collectively three years, yeah.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: And in that three years, have you noticed a lot of change in terms of the campaigns you're doing and being involved with?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Melbourne is a bigger fish, um more clients, just more, everything is to a grander scale, and the capacity to fly over to Sydney and do campaigns as well is there, the options are there, so yeah, definitely.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And what do you love about modeling?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know it can be a double-edged sword.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: What I love about modeling wearing really, really beautiful clothes, which you look beautiful in, yes.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um meeting really good people, like really interesting, eclectic, not your average that you'll find on the streets, or maybe you probably could find them on the street, you just gotta talk to them.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: But now I have access to them in the modeling industry and learning from them.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: That definitely you just meet so many cool people in because then you've got you've got people that work in production, you've got stylists, whether they be hair, makeup, uh, the people that are putting the clothing in place.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's just so many different people to meet when you're part of a production that big, absolutely.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: And what do you find challenging about it?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: I would say some of the things that I find challenging is still not having hairstylists that can cater to my hair.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's really, really challenging.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Although I would love to think we are getting to a place where we can find a suitable option for all parties.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you might get a which is getting better, but makeup artists that don't really have your shade.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Communication is really challenging in the modeling industry.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think you've got to assert yourself.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: I find it really tricky to communicate with people on email.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think sometimes they might receive me as passive-aggressive.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I prefer to sit down with you and we can have a conversation.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's so much better.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard to totally agree with you.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: I totally agree with that.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would say those, those are my only challenges, really.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then probably navigating people's presumptions of you that aren't always true, but they don't even come from like a place of you, they come from a place of their own selves.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I try to just zone that out.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and pretend that's not even like there, because it's yeah, it wouldn't really be worthy for me.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, on that note, obviously there was that little thing I saw I read about, and I'm gonna read you this little quote, and you can contextualize it for me.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: This is something that you said a while back.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm tired of men, though, the system that is patriarchy, and I'm tired of girls and women getting killed, subjugated, and oppressed at the hands of men.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: The act of marrying oneself is not new.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: As polygamy, it is not legally recognized in Australia, but is viewed by some as a symbolic opportunity to express self-love.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: This fascinates me.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really curious.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now I know there was, I, you know, I obviously some of it was there was an element of satire.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: I understand that.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm curious where that came from.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: And can you just extrapolate a little bit for me on that?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the second bit that you read, that was not me.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: I do not eloquently speak like that.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the first bit is very correct, you know, coming from a South Sudanese background.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's so interesting that as a society we we do live in this like shame-based bubble, and then you've got your micro cultures, so the Dinka culture, and that's very everything's taboo, sex, everything's taboo in that sense.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of things are taboo, and uh one of the things that I would say is taboo is abuse, you know, being able to speak out about abuse that occurs, even though we all know it's something that happens constantly and consistently, but it goes unchecked.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I was speaking towards that and my experiences as a South Sudanese woman in the Dinka culture, and not to bash the Dinka culture because I love it.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: However, I know growing up and still to this day, there are certain things, there are certain ways that women are still being treated over here and back on the continent.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then, yeah, just right now is a prime example of how women are being treated in Australia.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I was also speaking to that in the system in which we do live in, which is patriarchy, like you can't dress it up.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: We do live in a world that is designed for men.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: And don't we know it?
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a it's but but also do you think like everything that's coming out in the last, you know, obviously the last few weeks have been extraordinary.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: The universality of the experience is is what I think is confronting for us all.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: But it in some ways there's a comfort in that you go, wait, this is enculturated in so many different uh countries, cultures, whether you're talking about Australian um Australian ways or South Sudan ways, it it really is something that has to change, and I'm sure that it's going to be challenging across the board.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: What has happened this last few weeks has been pretty powerful.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see that as spearheading change?
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: And do you feel as a young woman, Australian woman, um, that there is hope in the next five to ten years that we're going to have some sort of improvement?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: Or do you think this is a little bit tokenistic?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: What are your thoughts on that?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know what, Deborah?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: I am not that I want to put the responsibility on this certain group, but I'm really excited about the cohort of individuals that are coming up who are much younger than me, who are at primary level able to articulate to me that the behaviors that the boys are exhibiting in the playground is sexism.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: I am like, what in the heck?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out to TikTok, shout out to whoever they have, or maybe it's the internet, you know, access to that kind of material and resources.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure what, but to have younger girls and women being able to recognize and have the language to describe the behavior that is occurring within our societies, that is what gives me hope.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the action part, I truly believe that will come.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: I truly, truly believe that will come.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're right though, because they're much, they're far more aware compared to, let's say, you and certainly to my generation, um, the education and the fact that it's it's in the paper, it's everywhere, it's in schools now being discussed, they're about to transform the way that that's all managed and taught.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: So you're also at the coal face of that too, which is exciting because you're actually in a position to really work with those young girls and the boys, because I think out of all of this, we we need to also nurture and educate our boys.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're not the enemy, they're and that's that's what we have to make sure that we do, and I think that's what you're saying.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: But the fact that you're talking about such young people having an understanding, that is offering hope, and I'm glad to hear that you agree with that because I'm I'm on the same page with you.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's interesting.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think um I think you've got in some ways two very powerful tools at your disposal because you have Ooh, enlighten me.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you have a fierce intellect, and you certainly have um a real understanding of these issues at such a young age, but you also now do have a somewhat public persona that you can develop and cultivate and use in a positive way if that's what you choose to do.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_01: So have you thought about that notion?
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because you've sort of got, and obviously you're a woman, which is a you know a bonus as well, because you've got I do it or Deborah, I do it every single time.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Every time I go out and there's some South Sudanese men around, I am in the corner with some South Sudanese man talking to them about feminism.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: That I don't know how.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Every night I don't care who it is, I just find someone, they say something, and we get into this conversation.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's because it's who I am, I can't separate myself from that.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I would be doing a disservice to, I've got like four nieces.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be doing a disservice to them if I didn't show up the way that I do.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's just it's part of who I am, it's part of how I feel safe.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I don't know how else to say it.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's legitimately woven into the tapestry of who I am now.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's what I it's what I believe in.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, good on you.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's great.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: And they're very lucky to have um you in their lives and and for you to be able to impart some of your understanding.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think often young girls listen to other young girls, even though you're older than they are.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm sure you're quite an inspiration.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: You've shown what can be achieved so far.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty impressive.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me, who are some of the mentors, other than obviously your mum who's super inspirational for you, but who are some of the other mentors in your life that, or even that you've met along your journey?
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I wouldn't use the word mentor, maybe um individuals that help me in navigating my life, perhaps.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, the big one, the most pivotal one would be my mum.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: She's like the Pope, and then I've got girlfriends, I've got aunts, I've got cousins.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's usually a lot of women, yeah, mostly women.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Authors that I read, I would say.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm looking towards women in black women in Melbourne who are in the art scene and being inspired by them.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I haven't really approached them and been like, hey, can you take me under your wing just yet?
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: But hopefully that is too calm.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I am sure.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's a string of women.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's a string of women.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure they'll be very honored to take you under their wing.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and just just tell me finally, who are some of your favorite designers?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: What do you?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, who knows?
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: This could take you anyway.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: You could actually do some wonderful work.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, are there designers that you are inspired by?
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Would you ever do your own range?
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: Would you ever, you know, go on that pathway?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite designer is Tony Badachewski.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love Tony Badachewski.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: And not just because you know, he's a great designer, internationally renowned, great at what he does, um, consciously minded.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've worked with him on several occasions, but also like a really good man, like my example of what I see a good man to be.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that comes about through the conversations we have.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: They're very, then they're not surface level, like we really like get into it.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, Tony, and then internationally, I would say your the likes of like your Westwoods, I would love to fingers crossed maybe work with them one day.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, but I'm still like a baby and a learner in this world and in this realm.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I also respect that my my capacity to spend time to really understand who it is I would love to work with.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I have a feeling we're gonna see a lot more of you.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: I just get a sense that between that um ferocious intellect, that beauty, and that ferocious intellect.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_01: Take that on board and go and enjoy it.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: I I think you are going to be a force to be reckoned with, if not, if you're not already.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: And um I want to thank you for coming on the What I've Learned podcast and being such an inspiration.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate the time to get together.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Lovely.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: Bye, sweetheart.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for listening.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: The What I've Learned podcast will now be coming to you weekly with new episodes released every Tuesday.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind, and curious.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Love death.