5 minutes with Vivian Chordi

WiAD: How did you first get involved with aid and development work?

Vivian: During my Bachelor of Arts where I majored in both Cultural Studies and Politics and International Studies, I took on a minor in Community Development which first set me on a path to build a career in the sector. A short-term exchange to Kyung Hee University in South Korea led to the completion of the Global Collaborative Program delivered by the professionals from the UN Conference of NGOs (CoNGO), where I undertook courses in ‘Civic Leadership and NGO Capacity Building’ and ‘United Nations and Global Governance’. This was followed by securing an internship in the International Programs section of Good Neighbours International in Seoul. This was my first ever role in an NGO, igniting my aspirations to seek further study. Upon returning to Australia, I completed a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Sydney, focusing on Human Rights, Gender and Conflict Resolution. During this time, I worked as a campaign assistant for ActionAid Australia, before moving to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, as a child and gender protection consultant with the Cambodian Centre for the Protection of Children’s Rights. Following this, I then moved to Bogota, Colombia to work as a Gender Rights Officer for the United National Population Fund (UNFPA), focussing on projects designed to combat gender-based violence and the use of sexual violence in conflict zones.  

Following a couple of internships and volunteering stints with various NGOs back in Australia, I was offered a role through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s International Aid Volunteer Program and was placed with Solidaridad Network Asia, in Dhaka, Bangladesh. My role as a Gender Inclusion Officer was charged with gender mainstreaming the “Sustainable Agriculture, Food Security and Linkages” program. I developed and delivered multiple workshops on gender inclusion around the country, created policy documents and evaluated the program’s success on several field visits. Unfortunately, after a year, the political landscape became quite turbulent and it became increasingly difficult to travel around the country, which was a critical part of my role.

I returned to Australia so that we could apply for my husband’s Australian citizenship but with the plan to work overseas indefinitely once we had obtained it (but plans changed!) I ended up with some short-term contracts at UNICEF Australia and Mèdecins Sans Frontières in their supporter relations and communications teams before moving into the higher education industry, where I was able to straddle development work within the tertiary sector, in the Professional and Community Engagement (PACE) International team, which focussed on partnerships and work-integrated learning with NGOs across Asia and the Pacific. I had the chance to travel a lot with this role, visiting Macquarie's NGO partners across the region and supporting their strategic directives. I worked closely with Australian Volunteers International and Scope Global to identify and establish community development partners to ensure best-practice service learning, community development and partnership management.

I had several short-term contracts as a facilitator and mentor with Engineers Without Borders Australia Humanitarian Design Summits in Malaysia, Nepal and Cambodia during which time I delivered and facilitated workshops on best practice international development, child protection and human-centred design principles. As a result of these experiences, I was invited to be a panellist for the University of Sydney “Women Without Borders: Gender Diversity in Humanitarian Engineering” event in 2016 and a keynote speaker at the inaugural Inter-University Humanitarian Engineering Conference in both 2017 and 2018. It was a real highlight to connect with and inspire young people keen to work overseas in humanitarian contexts.

I am a firm believer in volunteering at all stages of one’s career (not just in the early years) so I became a Mentor for the Women in International Affairs Network (WIAN) which provides support for early career professionals from across disciplines in international affairs, aid and development. I also supported the work of Cufa, as a member of the International Development Working GroupI. I have also been a committee member for the 2019 and 2021 Research for Development Impact Network Conferences (formerly Australian Council for International Development Universities network), Coordinator of the WASH Knowledge Hub for Engineers without Borders NSW, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Youth Conference Team member and volunteered as conference assistants for the Australian Council for Human Rights Education and International Peace Research Association. And of course, now my non-executive director role on the board of WiAD!

WiAD: Can you share more about your role in the higher education sector and what it is you do?

Vivian: I am currently an Advisor with the Global Leadership Program at Macquarie University. This international multi-award-winning co-curricular leadership program focuses on Global Citizenship Education which is open to all students, and currently has over 3,000 active participants from over 200 different disciplines, I manage the workshop series which aims to further students’ understanding and engagement with pertinent global issues such as foreign policy, human rights, gender equality, climate change, microfinance, sustainable development, social justice, international humanitarian law, innovation and entrepreneurship for positive social impact. This series is convened by NGOs, academics, researchers, consultants and thought leaders with various subject matter expertise. I work closely with convenors in developing their lesson planning and setting clear learning outcomes grounded in academic and critical pedagogy. I also research, design and deliver curriculum for online and in-person learning programs on refugees, human rights, international development, and social justice advocacy, with a focus on participatory activities. I have created  online learning modules; ‘Responsible Volunteering and Ethical Travel’, which focuses on child protection issues, responsible social media, and decolonising international aid as some of the key themes. The second module is ‘Refugee Insights’,  designed to raise awareness of refugees, the crises that caused their displacement, and the history of refugees in Australia.

One of my favourite parts of my role is managing the Foreign Affairs Speaker Series, where I facilitate and moderate presentations and content by senior diplomats and leading figures in the human rights, diplomacy and international relations sectors.  The GLP runs a symposium to Canberra which is another highlight, visiting ambassadors, high commissioners, NGOs, Think Tanks and government agencies looking at the contemporary political, social and ecological landscape in Australia and our region. Another impactful part of my role enables me to lead students through different multicultural communities in Sydney, visiting different local councils, community ogranisations that support refugees and other vulnerable groups, places of worship and delicious food. I find these learning experiences facilitate cultural intelligence, empathy, curiosity and a global-outlook, which I believe will help shape the social fabric of Australia for the better. Universities are the coal-face for social change and I wanted to be a part of that within my own community, and find ways to support issues I care deeply about, through educating the next generation of leaders through immersive learning journeys not offered through a typical academic curriculum. 

WiAD: What does women’s leadership mean to you?

Vivian: Women's leadership is hard fought for, and it should not be modelled on this sort of 'girl-boss' individualised patriarchal model of leadership that we see in predominantly Western countries, this still perpetuates a glass ceiling and limitations. Instead of replicating the male CEO's expectation of what a leader looks like, intersectional feminism reimagines it with more realistic, gender-nonconforming benchmarks and indicators. I truly believe that leadership has to be intersectional and is a collective effort, and supports the idea that when women rise, we all rise. Women's leadership, in my opinion, should be empathy-driven, openly communicative, strengths-based, visionary, reflective and feminist in its foundation.

I love Srilatha Batliwala's  take on feminist leadership (Transformative Feminist Leadership: What It Is and Why It Matters, 2022); 'Feminist leadership understands that power is at the heart of leadership, especially power over. Thus, feminist leadership seeks to move away from this oppressive use of power towards forms that are empowering, enabling, inclusive, and collective – power with, to, and within. Women's leadership 'not about authority and control, nor about being the boss, the “shero” or the saviour, but about dismantling discriminatory structures of power – visible, hidden, and invisible, within ourselves, our organisations and movements, and the larger world.' 

WiAD: When did you become involved with WiAD and why?

Vivian: I became involved with WiAD when I met the Chair Chris Franks through mutual connections at Cufa, and I applied for an opening for a board director role and simultaneously joined the mentoring committee at WiAD. I wanted to become involved because I am passionate about this sector remaining engaged, connected to young aspiring aid and development workers, evolving in line with updated best practices, and an intersectional leadership being prioritised. I feel strongly that creating a more supportive, inclusive, and connected community of like-minded people, will only strengthen the sector and those that work within it. This is why I believe the mentoring program is such a fantastic model within WiAD. Both Mentors and Mentees can have two-way knowledge sharing, opening more doors for each other, and blurring the lines between the more traditional model of development workers, and those who are adjacent to the sector, but have so much to offer. 

WiAD: How would you describe the sector when it comes to women's leadership roles? 

Vivian: I would describe the sector as not being as intersectional as it should be, particularly in the CEO roles, while women now make up over 50% of leadership roles in the sector, the majority are white women (I say this as a white woman myself who has criticisms of my own role in the sector and where I have not been best placed to provide leadership or expertise). This is particularly obvious in the INGO world and there have been very interesting articles written about this, by people far more equipped to speak on this than I am, but there does need to be a more concerted effort in decolonising the aid sector, and talking about what that truly looks like and what it means in practice. I think this sector tends to attract more women than men in general, especially in recent decades, but this is not always reflected in leadership teams, or on boards. The sector has work to do in making it more inclusive and easier to get a foot in the door.

WiAD: Did you find it difficult to get roles, or face any difficulties when you first started in the sector?

Vivian: Following on from my comment above, I do think the sector has some accessibility issues. Obviously the professionalisation of the sector is great, and it should be attracting qualified candidates, but it is rather a small pool here in Australia and it can seem quite difficult to get into the sector. I certainly had difficulties in getting roles when I first started, as a lot of my experience was from overseas, and I found myself losing out to other candidates who had worked a lot here and had strong networks and connections. I have since built those, but it took a long time and many people that I studied with ended up choosing different career paths when roles were not coming into fruition. The fact that many roles expect experience, even junior roles, so that often means internships and volunteering, which tend to be unpaid, this creates inequity, as many folks cannot afford to take time to intern or volunteer overseas for long periods of time (if at all) and those internships build connections that bridge networks and results in a sort of gate-keeping effect. I persevered, but I must acknowledge the privilege I had to do so, and this shouldn't be the case for a sector such as this.

The other difficulty was when my now-husband and I were looking for roles (he was also in the sector) we would often find it hard to get roles at the same time, in the same country, one would get a contract and the other would follow and possibly find something, but then the other contract would be wrapping up. So it was a catch up game which was not financially stable, or viable if we wanted to remain together. Lastly, many roles in Australia do not pay that well and overseas roles tend to be contract-based so it is hard to plan long-term, so eventually it can be tricky to maintain, especially if both partners work in the sector. This should not be taken as discouragement to join the sector, but it is something that I know many of us have gone through and there needs to be collective effort to combat some of these issues. 

WiAD: How do you balance family and work life? [Tips for other parents in the sector]

Vivian: Firstly, I am incredibly lucky to have support from family and friends. My village of support has been critical for me to have some balance, and I am acutely aware that this is unfortunately not the case for some. I work well at night, so I often research and consume loads of articles and journals once I have put my toddler to bed, and I can just dive in, mostly uninterrupted! I try to make the time to attend events and seminars when I can, if not in person, then at least online. The increase of online offerings has been a game-changer for so many of us with young children, to be able to participate from home, or at least listen to recordings later. I am lucky enough to work hybrid, with an incredibly supportive team and manager, so that is also helpful in balancing work and family life.

I also am now much better at prioritising things, I only go to the things that I am really interested in, I have to be choosy with when and where I go, because my time is not always my own now. So being strategic in what I sign up for is key, and that is definitely the advice I would share. I would like to see a more collective effort amongst those of us who are parents, perhaps a sort of working group where we go to events when others cannot, taking it in turns, and then sharing our learnings and highlights so we are still remaining connected but not needing to go to everything or be across everything, because it simply becomes too much. So I would like to explore more ways that women in the sector can feed into each other's learning and development. 

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A huge thank you to Vivian for her time. We appreciate her for sharing her story and such invaluable insights!

Vivian works in the higher education sector advising global citizenship education programs, specialising in human rights, cultural diplomacy, and stakeholder engagement.  She is a passionate advocate for cross-sector collaboration, mentorship, and empowering the next generation of leaders to think critically about their role as global citizens, by creating a more peaceful, sustainable, and equitable society for all. Vivian is a Director of WiAD and a member of the WiAD Mentoring Committee.