Healing and Justice

14/10/2025

In 2014, I attended a workshop in Townsville ran by Vikki Reynolds. I was immediately captivated by Vikki’s refusal to sanitise or neutralise community work and her commitment to centring First Nations sovereignty and depathologising practice. 11 years on, I am still so moved and influenced by her words and actions. I am honoured to be offering a reflection for Vikki’s online book launch, To Be Of Use. It’s going to be such a treat to hear Vikki read from her new book and to hear the ripple effects it has had. You don’t need to have read the book to find the event useful. Please join us tomorrow at 9am AEST. Must register

Join us in celebrating to launch of Vikki's book with a reading by Vikki and responses from some special guests

04/07/2025

heck, pay me the big bucks

04/06/2025

I am getting flashbacks to times in my life when I was broke and shoplifted. Just in the last week, a young disabled black man was restrained and killed by cops at a lolly aisle in Coles in Mparntwe and 30+ civilians were gunned down by the IDF at a food aid site in Gaza. We would all seek out food by whatever means necessary if it was called for. But when we are governed by institutions that deem black and brown bodies as inherently dangerous and threatening, this very mundane act of seeking food becomes deadly.

30/05/2025

who is up for supervision today? don’t mind the kids in the background.

28/05/2025

what does survival mean if we only live to forget where we are from and how we arrived. my mum remembers dad pulling corpses from the river he would normally pull fish from. that was Huế around 1969. he never forgot the smell. it’s 2003, i flip through a history book in modern history class and see the black and white photo of The Na**lm Girl. i have never been able to forget the face of the burned child. it’s Monday morning, i am woken up at an ungodly hour by my 2 yo again. i check IG and the latest horror story from Gaza is accompanied by the image of a young Palestinian girl silhouetted by fire. i learn that 6 yo Ward Khalil survives the Israeli bombing of a school her family was sheltering in but her mother and siblings didn’t. i hug my baby close to my chest. i want him to know that his life matters. i want him to hear our stories of survival. i want him to learn that in surviving we vow, never again. We did not die or survive to cater to Empire.
first image, is 10 mth old me, I think at Melbourne airport? second image is me, my parents and siblings about to depart Hong Kong after 6 years in detention centres.

30/04/2025

hey friends. gosh, it’s been a minute! this is going to sound so unrelated to the work of healing and justice but hear me out. tonight i played my first basketball game since 2019. if you didn’t ready know this about me, i love the game. played since i was 10 and only retired coz bad knees. then found it hard to return bc grief, pandemic, birth, surviving capitalism, mum guilt etc. etc.

none of this s**t has disappeared. the world is on fire and crises and catastrophes are everywhere. it’s taken me a while but i am realising that i cannot sustain life without play. i can’t wait for the moment of deep restoration or healing in my body or in our world to arrive before i allow myself to play. because this moment will probably never come. and to deny or suspend play/joy bc we are hurting seems so senseless and punitive.

i think when we are allowed to play, we are at our most creative. and when we are at our most creative, we can be more dangerous.

so i am going to play like our movements depend on it. i’m going to play defense whilst strategising how we can protect each other. i am going to attack and move with such intention and tenacity that the opposition has no choice but to step back. i am going to play even of i know my lungs and knees will struggle. i am going to play even when or perhaps particularly when despair is loud. so game on.