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Speakers.
We are excited to bring you a range of speakers. As each speaker is confirmed, we will provide the information here.
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Nova Peris OAM
Former Senator / Dual Olympian
Brad Chilcott AM
Welcoming Australia
Faith Coleman
Environmentalist
Ian Steel OAM
Kickstart for Kids
Melanie Tate
Puddle Jumpers
Nova Peris OAM
Australia’s first Aboriginal woman elected to Federal Parliament and the first Aboriginal and Northern Territorian to win an Olympic Gold Medal. A dual Olympian and the first Olympic torchbearer for the Sydney 2000 Games.
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A former Senator for the Northern Territory, Nova is a passionate campaigner for Aboriginal rights and reconciliation in Australia. She has also actively campaigned on issues of mental & physical health, Racism, No Nuclear Waste Dump at Muckaty Station NT, Free the Aboriginal Flag Campaign, Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Treaty, Djab Wurrung Save the Trees campaign and many more.
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Nova Peris Foundation
​​The Nova Peris Foundation is a not for profit organisation that is committed to empowering Aboriginal people to achieve life excellence though healthy nutrition, clean water and opportunities to participate in sport, education, health, spiritual wellbeing and cultural activities.
NovaPeris
Ian Steel OAM
Kickstart for Kids
Ian established Kickstart For Kids, a not for profit organisation, after mentoring “at risk” primary school children. In 2009 Ian noticed that the children he was mentoring were always hungry and could not concentrate properly. After consulting with teachers and students it was discovered that of kids in lower socio-economic areas were coming to school without breakfast and no lunch.
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A builder by trade, Ian started making sandwiches to take to schools before he went to work. In 2011 he founded KickStart for Kids on the belief that every child, regardless of their social or economic background, should have an equal chance.
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On Australia Day 2017 Steel was recognised in the General Division of the Order of Australia for his service to children through social welfare programs.
IanSteel
BradChilcott
Brad Chilcott AM
Welcoming Australia
Brad has worked for over a decade to create diverse, collaborative stakeholder coalitions with the ability to drive systemic change and achieve meaningful outcomes for vulnerable people in a range of sectors including migration, multiculturalism, settlement, Australian Aid, education, mental health, social housing and LGBTIQ+ inclusion.
Brad is the convenor of the South Australia, Queensland and Dad’s Thrive By Five Alliances, campaigning for universal access to quality early education as part of a fully stitched together early childhood development system.
Brad is the founder and a Board Director of Welcoming Australia, a national movement cultivating a culture of welcome for people seeking asylum, refugees and other new arrivals to Australia.
MelanieTate
Melanie Tate
Puddle Jumpers
Melanie is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Puddle Jumpers - a charitable organisation with approximately 700 volunteers. Puddle Jumpers provide services, camps and activity days to children and young people in South Australia, primarily those who don't live with their birth parents. Puddle Jumpers has now expanded to providing food assistance programs to over 1,200 families weekly through food relief programs throughout South Australia, in addition to providing outreach support to the Coober Pedy community.
Faith Coleman
Environmentalist
Faith comes from a family of environmentalists and primary producers, with multiple generations of her family working on the ecology of salinas, saltlakes and estuaries, so she was (quite literally) born with her feet in saline muds. She spent her childhood exploring tidal deltas in some of the most remote regions of Australia, as witnessing some of the most pivotal conservation and indigenous land rights campaigns in the last forty years.
Faith sits on a number of research-focussed organisations, including the International Society for Salt Lake Research and the Coorong Environmental Trust. She is heavily involved with a number of catchment or seascape community initiatives, both in Australia and abroad, working with disadvantaged communities or First Nations people to restore productive coastal lagoons and estuaries.
FaithColeman
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