#ShesGotVERVE: Why we Love Yassmin Abdel-Magied

Sudanese born Yassmin Abdel-Magied arrived in Australia before she was two years old in 1992, at the time her family was one of only two Sudanese families in Brisbane. She has described herself as “the most reviled Muslim in Australia”. Yassmin Abdel-Magied is many things. The “most reviled Muslim in Australia” was also named the 2007 Young Australian Muslim of the Year, and in 2010 Young Queenslander of the Year. She is a known writer, broadcaster and engineer. She has also driven and helped design racing cars, enjoys boxing, football and philosophy.

Yassmin excelled in class where she was the first headscarf-wearing student in her Christian high school’s history, and at the age of sixteen, she co-founded a youth charity called Youth Without Borders. Youth Without Borders is an organisation that empowers young people who engage in collaborative programmes to work for positive change within their communities.

Yassmin is a sought-after advisor for federal governments and international bodies, having sat on the Australian Multicultural Council, the Board of the Queensland Museum and the Design Council. She was Head of Media on the organising committee of the 2014 Youth G20 Summit and currently sits on the Boards of ChildFund, The Council for Australian-Arab Relations (CAAR) and the domestic violence prevention organisation, OurWatch. She is the Gender Ambassador for the Inter-American Development Bank and has represented Australia through multiple diplomatic programs across the globe.

She was listed among Australia’s “Top 100 Most Influential Engineers”, and used her passion for youth, women and minority empowerment as a public speaker and on Australian television as a regular panellist and presenter. She uses her voice for many things, and states that:

“Throughout my life that storytelling is one of the best ways to create empathy and to share experiences,”

She uses her entire identity to move mountains for Women and Girls of Colour- to represent, to empower, to protect and to challenge. She calls for society to educate ourselves on how we benefit from the structures and systems that exist around us, as well as understand how they disadvantage us and our peers. She has used her platforms to remind us that knowledge is power , and that we must use this power to fuel our activism in order to shape a fairer, safer and inclusive world. Yassmin may be many things, but #ShesGotVERVE.

Article by Social Media & Content Manager Yaz Omran

Originally published on www.verveup.com