Growing up, Shira Sebban recalls she was always drawn to learning about the experience of refugees and asylum seekers and felt compelled to find ways to help them. Here is how she translated that desire into a career as an advocate for refugees that saw her awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2022.
Shira’s professional and personal lives were stacked: she worked as a journalist and in publishing, taught French to university students, and served on the board of her children’s school. A career change was never on her mind.
Yet her heart never failed to skip a beat each time she encountered media stories about the plight of refugees and asylum seekers.
“All these years I kept thinking, ‘I don’t have the time’, ‘not now’ ... and then I decided to bite the bullet,” Shira said.
In 2016, Shira started volunteering her time as a refugee advocate for Supporting Asylum Seekers Sydney (SASS). The role meant she visited detention centres in Sydney once a week, where she saw firsthand the confronting predicament of some asylum seekers and refugees in this country.
Over the course of four years, she found herself assisting displaced families with resettlement and a better chance at life. Her experience as a journalist lent itself to writing articles for human rights law firm Human Rights for All (HR4A) to bring more visibility to the challenges faced by refugee and asylum seekers. However, despite volunteering her time and skills to help amplify these voices, Shira said she felt limited in her expertise to help beyond what her current skills and interests were.
“As time went on and I got more involved in this area, reading more and more law cases, I thought to myself, ‘This is ridiculous, I should really get a qualification in this area if I’m doing this’,” she said.
Channeling passion into a profession
Buoyed by a desire to create change, in 2020 she decided to enrol in postgraduate studies at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) to learn the skills she would need to have a more tangible impact on refugee and asylum seeker communities. She enrolled in the Graduate Diploma in Migration Law and Practice with UTS’s Faculty of Law to gain the qualifications she would need to become a community migration agent.
“I looked at a lot of different courses and UTS’s seemed very hands-on, thorough, yet flexible and very well run,” Shira said.
Shira Sebban.
“I got so much out of it in every way, from the support of the teachers, the relationships I developed, to the training I received to make a tangible impact through my work. I went in with the intention of getting a targeted education that will lead to a career – and it sure delivered.”
As much as she was driven by her passion to help others, Shira said the decision to study again seemed rather daunting to begin with. She already had a postgraduate degree from years ago, and she had worked for years in an entirely different industry. Her fear wasn’t so much about a change of career, but rather about finding ways to balance her commitments and get back into the rhythms of study.
“When you’re a mum and you have kids, you lose a bit of confidence when you’re out of the workforce, so that was my biggest thing.”
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, her course was delivered entirely online. The flexibility of pacing the study, the responsiveness of the teachers, and the forums to access support from peers and educators played a crucial part in providing Shira with a holistic experience.
“One of my teachers was overseas and he would respond to every single question, every single student, and look at every single student’s work to provide individual commentary, which is really above and beyond,” Shira said.
“It was incredible. It didn’t feel like I missed out on anything in my online course.”
The deadlines and work-life juggle were real, but given the support at UTS, Shira felt she could bring her best self to postgraduate study.
“As a postgraduate student, you’re working, you have family commitments, you’re trying to carve out the time to study and make life happen, so the flexibility that I had at UTS was instrumental in ensuring I could make the most of the course,” Shira said.
“If you say you’re struggling to manage everything, they will support you with flexible study options and much more.”
Finding a community to grow with
Although Shira has years of work experience under her belt, the network she built at UTS has helped her grow tremendously as a professional.
Despite studying in an online-only environment, Shira described her learning experience as one of inclusiveness and collaboration thanks to study groups and peer support programs.
“Having these groups forced me to push my own boundaries to accommodate other people’s perspective and collectively problem solve,” Shira said.
“There was no shame in asking questions, and the system really supported everyone’s learning experience. We continued to grow our network even after graduating and through working alongside new students as mentors in their initial months.”
Since graduating, she has kept up these connections with her peers, which she said has been a huge help in her professional journey.
“Some of my peers started their own agency and now have their own business; others have immersed themselves in areas more personal to them,” Shira said.
“We continue to cross paths and learn from each other.”
Shira Sebban (centre) with women in a detention centre.
Giving yourself and others a voice
Getting a postgraduate degree made it possible for Shira to combine her passions, creative thinking and professional skills to work within the system and actively fight for refugee and human rights as a migration agent. In short, her degree gave her and her clients a voice.
“What we do is extremely meaningful but very difficult, painful work,” she said.
“But when I see a refugee get a visa, become a part of the community, and be released from years and years of detention – it’s an amazing feeling to give someone the help to get their freedom. I am so grateful to be able to make that tangible impact through my work every single day.”
Although taking the leap and changing careers can seem intimidating, it just takes a small step to start the transformation.
“If you’re deeply passionate about something or have an interest in an area that you’ve been putting off, it’s worth giving it a go,” Shira said.
“If you’re on the fence, it’s important to know you have options. I’m so grateful to have had such a fabulous experience at UTS.”
Thinking of taking the next step in your career? Find out everything you need to know about postgraduate study at UTS. Enquire here.