Ned Aurora

Background

About Ned Aurora

Highly motivated and responsive to feedback with a focus on long-term and sustainable success, I have strong communication skills and an empathetic approach towards others. My knowledge and skills across both communications and social sciences equips me in both fields. I am passionate about engaging with communities who have faced discrimination, oppression and disadvantage by walking alongside them to create real and tangible solutions so a positive difference can be made in their lives, by improving the social, economic and spiritual outcomes and health and wellbeing of people from non-dominant backgrounds and providing services to victims of abuse. My experience in the mining and resources industry has taught me the powerful role the industry can play in achieving this. My primary motivation to complete my current studies in human services and community work is to understand the needs of people from racial minorities and cater to them. I have consistently linked the concepts and theories I have learned in community work, youth work, psychology and criminology units to the common experiences amongst these demographics. Part of the understanding I gained on youth crime included studying the structural causes of it amongst racial minorities, where I referred to Indigenous Australians as a case study. Furthermore, I have proposed how moral panics in the media coverage of offending by racial minorities and young people impacted the social agency of these groups. I received High Distinctions for both these pieces of work. As a communicator, I like publishing stories from these groups and individuals which are not typically covered by the mainstream media - to provide an avenue for them to share their experiences, have their voices amplified, and be empowered. As part of my studies, I have experience working with Not-for-Profit organisations through my work with the Roy Hill Community Foundation, volunteering with the Centre for Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Detainees and completing work for the Indigenous Emerging Business Forum, where I was Project Manager of a group which provided a long-term communications plan.