Truganina’s Syeda Bahadur has lived in Wyndham for the relatively short period of about four years but she has made a significant contribution to the community during this time.
In 2021, Mrs Bahadur founded the Spring Social Group (SSG) for residents feeling isolated due to the COVID-19 pandemic, after her mother Masuma died from the coronavirus in India.
The SSG sessions, which ran in September and October, were supported by IPC Health and Wyndham council.
“Having lost my mother overseas to COVID and the grief was something that inspired me to plan this project, at first,” Mrs Bahadur said.
“I knew there would be many people in community who would have been in similar situations and need support from community.”
Mrs Bahadur said that she originally came to Australia at the age of 21 to pursue further education, after graduating from university in India.
In India, she worked for Udaan, a career guidance and education program for underprivileged students; took part in Model United Nations conferences; and organised peaceful marches against child labour.
“My compassion, values and morals drive me towards community development,” she said.
“But a lot of this has also come from my parents, whom I’ve always seen helping people around us.”
In addition, she said that Masuma – whom she described as “brave, kind and selfless” – did a lot of charity work during her life.
In 2019, Mrs Bahadur participated in Wyndham council’s Building Blocks leadership program.
Afterwards, Mrs Bahadur – who described herself as an “aspiring artist” – started the Wyndham Arts Club (now known as Wyndham Arts and Events) to support emerging local artists during the COVID lockdowns.
As well as serving on the Wyndham Park Community Centre’s board and working full-time for Metro Trains Melbourne, Mrs Bahadur volunteers to run workshops on interview skills and personal development for women from multicultural backgrounds.
However, she will not be running them on a regular basis in 2022, due to her work commitments and being pregnant with her first child.
Mrs Bahadur encouraged other community members to start volunteering.
“Volunteers make such a huge difference in connecting people to the services, programs and emergency response,” she said.
By Alesha Capone
