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Developing Lives

Li Min from Chongqing, China, works as a Training Coordinator and Interpreter at the Australian China Chongqing Vocational Education and Training Project (ACCVETP).

Eight years ago, with six years teaching experience at a university behind her, Li Min looked for new professional challenges. Thus, Li Min went back to university to recharge herself and obtained a Masters in British and American Literature from the Sichuan International Studies University. With abundant teaching experiences and excellent English language skills, Li Min was a valuable addition to the ACCVETP team which she joined as a Project Training Coordinator and Interpreter in 2002.

At the ACCVETP, Li Min is responsible for project training coordination and has played a significant role in building a communication bridge between Australian advisers and Chinese counterparts. Through her hard work, more and more training participants are introduced to the Competency Based Training concepts, which are considered the essence of Vocational Education and Training reform in China.

Li Min enjoys her work very much, especially when receiving positive feedback from training presenters and watching them participate in the training activities and workshops with passion and enthusiasm. However, her work at the ACCVETP is anything but easy. One of the biggest challenges Li Min has is to always have a comprehensive understanding of the whole project in order to manage the relationships between the 54 project schools and the Project Management Office smoothly.

According to Li Min, ACCVETP is a great place to work as the training and workshops conducted by the project provides everybody with great opportunity to participate, express ideas and learn from each other.

“I am very lucky to work with such an excellent team. All team members are extremely cooperative and supportive. It always encourages me to work harder and be brave enough to face any challenges I meet during the delivery of the project. All we strive for is to join together to contribute to the VET development in China”, says Li Min

 

Profile – Sri (Rino) Novelma, Development Coordinator, HAI

My name is Sri Novelma but people usually call me Rino.  I come from a village called Rambatan in West Sumatra, Indonesia.  I knew most people in the village because I met them through my parents’ grocery shop, where I used to be a shop attendant after school hours.  The villagers often referred to me as ‘anak Pak Bur’.  Anak means daughter or son in our language, and Burhanuddin is my father’s name (Bur for short).  People around the village recognised me more as the daughter of Mr Bur than as Rino.

I am the youngest of five.  My parents considered education as the most important thing in their children’s lives.  That was why through their hard work and persistence, they managed to put every single one of us through school and university.  It was not easy of course to send five children to university when my parents had to rely only on the income from their small grocery shop and the rice mill that they had in the village, but yet they did it.  It was tough for everybody in the family but it was worth it.  My four siblings currently work for the Indonesian government in their respective areas of interest and expertise, while I am here now, working for HAI.

During my years at university in West Sumatra, I worked as a translator for organisations such as GTZ, ICRAF and others.  Because of my involvement in these translation projects, I started to understand issues in the development arena - at least those in my province.  I used to visit remote villages with GTZ people and talk to the locals about their development priorities in the village.  I walked up and down the Kerinci Seblat National Park with an ICRAF team to discuss different matters with the farmers living in the buffer zone of the national park.  I learnt about their farming systems, their marketing strategies, and their difficulties in building better lives for their families.  Despite my rural background, this experience was an eye opener for me.  I became addicted to talking people about their lives because now I knew there was always more to what is presented to my eyes.

When I returned from Melbourne in 2000 after finishing another degree at Monash University, I knew that I wanted to work only in the development sector.  My introduction to the development arena through the translator job was not sufficient.  I wanted to be more involved in this sector.  This opportunity came when I started working with AusAID, and three years later when I came over to Australia and started working with HAI.  I am away now from my province where it all started, but I am glad that I am still working in this sector of which I cannot get enough.

I am currently living here with my family.  My husband, Hendra, is half way through his PhD degree at the ANU.  Adrian, our son, is enjoying life at Pre-school.  When we came over in 2004, Adrian was still too little to talk.  He now talks in English to us with an Aussie accent.  I always make a point of speaking with him in Bahasa Indonesia.  However, if I want to get his attention, I usually have to talk to him in a language that he quickly understands, i.e. English.  It takes patience to tell him something in Bahasa Indonesia, because for almost every other word, he’d ask “what is that, Mum?”

It has been wonderful to have the opportunity to live here in Australia, but I still miss home, especially the local food.  For those who have been to Indonesia, they’d know that in most parts of the country, we’d have food carts by the side of the street selling different kinds of food.  Whenever I want something like that here in Canberra, I usually pick up the recipe from the internet, try to find the right or similar ingredients at the Asian shops around town, and prepare it myself.  Most of the time, the results do not taste exactly the same as those at home because the ingredients that we use here, such as the coconut milk, only come in cans.  That is why before I go home to Indonesia for a visit, I usually prepare a long list of ‘things to eat’ so I can maximise the opportunity when I am over there. 

Whenever I return to the village nowadays, most villagers do not remember my name anymore, but they still remember that I am ‘anak Pak Bur”.  My father still owns the shop but he rents it out to a young family in the village.  As for me and my siblings, we often talk about our family history when we get together, and tell each other how we have come a long way