Deb is a 59-year-old lady who hails originally from Durban, South Africa. She was a studious child and enjoyed her elementary schooling before going on to further tertiary education and completing her school-teaching accreditation. Deb was a primary school teacher in South Africa for 13 years. During that time, she met her husband. The couple decided on a sea-change and emigrated to Australia in 2001, at which time Deb had two young children and was pregnant with their third.

The family is brainy with all the kids going on to tertiary education and very keen sportsmen. The boys are extremely accomplished soccer players, with Australian A-league appearance caps credited to their names! The apple has not fallen far from the tree as Deb herself currently holds the role as team manager at Ballarat City Seniors team.

Deb became naturalized as an Australian citizen on 27th July 2007. All the children were privately educated in Australia and the youngest sibling recently finished year 12 and has been accepted into ACU. Deb devoted her time to being a stay-at-home mum, a calling she savoured. She considers this as her greatest success. She did dabble in some part time work during this period, working as a relief teacher in 2005 and a cleaner in 2012 for 18 months.

This would’ve been no mean feat when you envisage the logistics of ferrying five kids around from school runs to after school activities and keeping everyone fed, watered, clothed and clean! Then there are the seemingly endless kilometres at the weekends driving the budding soccer stars to away games in all regions of Victoria. Yes, this was a completely selfless and stellar effort on Debs’ part all done without a second thought. Anything to help her beautiful family to realise their dreams, it exemplifies the old saying that a mother’s work is never done!

It was approaching 2019 when the youngest siblings were coming towards the end of secondary school when Deb realised she was beginning to see some time free up in her days, a luxury she had not been afforded for some time. Never one to sit around, she decided it was finally time to invest some of this time into herself! She began to keep an eye out online for opportunities. It was on social media she saw an advertisement for an upcoming computer course commencing at the Ballarat Neighbourhood Centre.

Deb scheduled a meeting and ended up signing up for a course in administration skills. She said from the moment she walked in it was just a lovely uplifting environment and everyone was so friendly and welcoming. All this was a breath of fresh air after decades of “isolation” from a world outside her home bound environment.

It was a lady from BNC, Jan, who approached Deb during an early visit to the Centre to ask if she would like to take part in a resume building course. Of course, Deb grabbed this opportunity with both hands. It was during this time compiling her impressive range of work and life experience and skills (including her recently completed Business Administration Skills course) Deb was able to see a snippet of her true value staring back at her in black and white.

Deb mentioned her good news about her recent successes in her business course to some associates from soccer and it wasn’t long before she was approached by a contact at the Ballarat Regional Multicultural Council (BRMC). She is obviously held in high regard within the Victorian soccer fraternity as they wanted to entrust her with the role of a co-coordinator for the prestigious ‘InterKultura’ soccer tournament, where teams from emerging migrant and refugee communities compete for the coveted trophy. The BNC Business Administration Skills course instilled Deb with the confidence and skills to be able to undertake such a mammoth responsibility and she absolutely smashed it with the tournament going down as a resounding success.

Deb likens her life before and after finding BNC almost to feeling institutionalised and then being released back into mainstream society. It was like she didn’t remember how to interact or function, where she was so used to being the dominant matriarch running a meticulously organised family ship and now she was just expected to be a cog in the machine of life.

BNC has helped “connect me back into the community”. Now Deb is really starting to find her wings and flourish and since the Tournament she has had 2 casual jobs. To cap off this inspirational success story, Deb has secured and is preparing to start a dream job working for the Ballarat Health service early in the new year. This is a testament to the sheer resilience and drive of this incredible lady.

She would like to make it known that she believes without the intervention of her mentors at BNC, none of this may have been possible. Deb is a sure thing to kick goals in her new career and there is no doubt that the sky is the limit moving forward.

We know the journey towards a destination is as important as the destination itself. Regardless of how you Connect with us, we will travel this journey with you; sharing your highs and lows, the good and the bad times, and working with you to help you Learn and Participate.

This story was captured by John in December 2023 as a student placement project for his Bachelor of Community and Human Services degree. Names may be changed.