Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to pay tribute to an extraordinary young woman from my electorate of Ryan: Lucy Strickland. Lucy received the inspiration medal in this year's Pride of Australia awards for her work improving the quality of life for children in war and disaster zones. For the past 15 years, Lucy has worked for numerous international non-government organisations, such as UNHCR, World Vision, CARE, Oxfam and the Norwegian Refugee Council in more than 20 different countries. Her work in the areas of educational development and reconstruction in post-conflict and disaster zones has seen her coordinate an emergency drought response in Ethiopia, work in Haiti at the peak of the cholera outbreak in 2010, establish a school of the air in Sierra Leone to help children excluded from formal education due to the Ebola crisis and work with the Nepalese Ministry of Education after the earthquakes to create temporary learning spaces.

Lucy is currently based in northern Iraq, where she has established an education program for 160,000 children in refugee camps as part of her role as a UN global education in emergencies specialist. Congratulations, Lucy: you truly are an inspiration to us all. I know that my colleagues in the chamber agree with me when we acknowledge the fact that at any given moment there are tens of thousands of young Australians travelling the world, and they are not all on holidays. Some are working hard and making great contributions. (Time expired)