A tale of courage and hope

DR SUNDRAM Sivamalai understands childhood deprivation and trauma better than most people.

Now, he’s decided to tell his story in an autobiography, One Dream Four Countries, which will be launched later this month as part of Refugee Week.

Dr Sivamalai said he was inspired to write it after giving talks as part of his work in the Ballarat Region Multicultural Council, telling stories of his life to children and adults.

“I was bringing in some similarities and differences between the cultural norms because I was talking more of the Asian culture that I come from,” he said.

“When I was finishing all that and then some of the listeners come and say, the adult listeners say, you should put this in a book.”

Born in Malaysia as the youngest child of six, Dr Sivamalai’s father passed away when he was four.

“Our situation was terrible, we hardly had food to eat, and we didn’t have a proper home, the place we lived in was our grandfather’s house, it was completely dilapidated,” he said.

When he was 17, after living in Singapore, he decided to do anything he could to improve his life and travelled to Scotland where he was sponsored to complete university and eventually completed his MBA at the University of Edinburgh.

“I decided nothing’s going to change for me unless I move away from it,” he said. “I’m already at the bottom of the barrel so there’s nothing lower than I can get to.”

Dr Sivamalai, with his wife and three-month-old child, then decided to move to his fourth country of residence, Australia, and make the most of their opportunities there.

Having achieved a career in academia, he started looking for ways he could give back to the community that had supported him.

He was approached by the Victorian Multicultural Commission and served for four years as commissioner.

In Ballarat, he was crucial to the development of the Ballarat Region Multicultural Council, which has come a long way in his time.

“It was a real hard struggle and getting the support, people to volunteer was not easy because at the time everyone was also looking for their bread and butter,” he said.

He said issues of bias and injustices in the region were slowly improving.

“You can see the figures now show we have an annual increment of five per cent population, so people are choosing to come. The issue of cultural diversity is diluting,” he said.

Always in pursuit of volunteering opportunities, Dr Sivamalai serves as a member of the Community Observers Working Committee of National Health and Medical Research Council and director of the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria.

He is also president of the Australian Chapter of the Emotional Wellbeing Institute in Geneva and is working to “link up Ballarat with our international community and more importantly the emotional institute in Geneva”.

Earlier this year he was recognised as the Ballarat Citizen of the Year.

If there is one message to take out of One Dream Four Countries, Dr Sivamalai wants it to be a message of hope.

“I did not let my hope fadeaway. I did not let my dream fadeaway,” he said.

“Often you move on, achieve a few things it gives you the motivation for the next thing you can embark on, and the skies the limit.”

Dr Sivamalai will join ABC Ballarat Chief of Staff Prue Bentley at the Ballarat Trades Hall on Tuesday, 22 June at 5pm to celebrate the launch of One Dream Four Countries.