Education, women’s rights
Anam Javed, ICV Secretary since October 2016 has the Interfaith Portfolio and is on the management team for Project Mosaic, ICV’s small grants program. Anam is a VCE Biology/Chemistry teacher at a government co-ed high school, working with young people between the ages of 12 to 18. She looks after their behavioural, academic and wellbeing needs while providing them with crucial real-world skills. Anam grew up in Pakistan, Malaysia and Brunei. She moved to Australia at the age of 19 to go to university. She speaks Urdu, Bahasa Melayu and of course English. Anam came to ICV when she successfully applied for our Study Tour to Turkey, a joint venture between ICV and the Turkish Ministry of Religious Affairs in June 2015. At this time, she re-engaged with the broader Muslim community in a powerful way and then started volunteering as a Project Mosaic team member, managing small community events that were needs based and innovative. She gained an insight into extensive services provided by ICV to the Muslim community and found the drive and capacity to contribute. Finally, the support of ICV staff paved her way to the 2017 board elections. Anam’s goal is to connect diverse Muslim communities in Victoria to one another and to ICV, so that we can all share resources and skills instead of doubling up on similar events and programs. Her long-term aim is to create a positive image of Muslims in the media, as the media is a tremendous stakeholder in influencing people’s perceptions of Muslims, especially in today’s volatile socio-political climate. She would like to engage more active youth members into interfaith programs, and encourage them to discuss and debate topical issues on religion and ethnics, along with up-skilling and training more young Muslims to develop a diverse and dynamic bank of future leaders. Anam would like to see the media engage with us positively and shed more light on the contributions of Muslims in Australia; and to see peak Muslim bodies united and working towards specific and strategies common goals. She would like the Australia-Muslim community to feel that their peak representative bodies adequately support and champion them. In addition, for trust building to occur between Muslims and other minority faith groups, so that we can collectively push for positive change. Lastly, her focus is Muslim youth, as Victorian Muslims are predominantly a young population and are facing great challenges like disillusionment due to bullying and racism. She would like to see young Muslims feel that they are valued and supported, and that they have equal opportunities to pursue their dreams and passions. Anam recently graduated from a Leadership course, which featured 30 different ethnic groups. She adores Melbourne’s cultural diversity and the fact that she can hear multiple languages spoken on just one tram journey on any day. Anam hopes to see an Australia that truly cherishes its cultural richness, and ethnic minorities wearing their skin colour and tongue twisting names as badges of pride.
Australia-Indonesia Muslim Exchange Program alumnus 2018, Islamic Council of Victoria secretary 2017-2019.
