Emmanuel was rewarded for trying something new
Emmanuel is a musician and youth work student who has just wrapped up his time with us as our Policy Intern. Although policy wasn’t his forte originally, Emmanuel is leaving CMY with a new perspective that he might not have gained, had he not taken on the role.
Outside of work, Emmanuel loves to hit the gym, sometimes more than four times a week when he isn’t too busy with work.
He also contributes heavily to his local Chaldean Catholic church as a subdeacon and a drummer for cultural events like weddings. The name differs depending on what language you speak, but Emmanuel specialises in a large bass drum that is hit with mallets.
“I used to play the drum kit. I’ve been playing drums since I was like five years old,” says Emmanuel.
“One of my friends got me into this drum and so I’ve stopped doing drum kit and I’ve just focused mainly on cultural drumming. I’ve made a business out of it.”
Emmanuel has been studying a Bachelor of Youth Work with a Minor in Counselling at Australian Catholic University (ACU) for the past three years. After his studies, Emmanuel wants to work in the counselling space, working closely with multicultural young people.
One requirement for graduation is a 200-hour placement and he ended up at CMY. In all honesty, policy wasn’t Emmanuel’s first choice for placement, but he was surprised by what he learnt in the role.
“The policy team has given me a completely new insight into how policy really affects the work that is done with young people and young people themselves. It’s not something that’s really covered in uni that much,” Emmanuel says.
“It’s given me a different perspective. Now, I see the bigger picture affects individual young people. How the bigger things in government or in general, with laws or with new inquiries, affects individual people that you’re working with.”
In his time with us, Emmanuel got to work closely with the Metro Youth Advisory Group (YAG) as well as work on his own research project supporting young Burmese people in Victoria’s eastern suburbs.
A particular highlight was working closely with Harini, CMY’s Policy Officer, throughout his placement. Emmanuel is legally blind, and Harini’s openness ensured his experience at CMY was comfortable as well as informative.
“The best thing my supervisor Harini did was she always asked questions,” Emmanuel says.
“I know most people haven’t really met anyone who is blind or visually impaired. So, when they kind of see that, it’s like something completely new and they don’t really know what to expect or what’s possible, what’s not possible, or how we work.”
Emmanuel has two pieces of advice for those working with people who are visually impaired. Firstly, he suggests keeping an open mind.
“The biggest thing for me honestly is ask questions and just listen to what the person tells you,” says Emmanuel.
“The one thing you need to remember is that the person [living with a disability] has been living this way for a long time. They know already how to do things. They might not be in the same way you do them, but they still achieve the same outcome.”
His other bit of advice is to let go of any assumptions you may have. Assumptions are not always conscious actions, but they can have detrimental effects on people with disabilities in the workplace.
“Not at CMY, but I’ve had experiences where people just assume I can’t do something,” Emmanuel says.
“If you had asked if I can do this… I would have told you ‘no, I can’t do it because of this’ or I would have said, ‘yeah, I actually can do that.’”
Emmanuel’s last reflection on his placement with us was filled with positivity.
“Thank you to CMY for having me and for being such a supportive organisation and for always being curious and open and willing to listen,” says Emmanuel.
“At a lot of organisations being the placement student, your opinion doesn’t really matter at all, but CMY always kind of made it clear through our own team meetings or any other team meetings I joined that they valued my opinion and they actually kind of changed things or did something based on what I said.”