In June 2026, Pauline Hanson stood at the National Press Club and declared multiculturalism a failed policy. She argued that Australia should no longer see itself as a multicultural society, but as a “monocultural” one.
For those of us in the Indian diaspora, this moment should give us pause.
Many of us came to Australia, or were raised by parents who did, because this country offered something precious: the possibility of a new beginning. We came for education, safety, employment, stability or the freedom to create lives that were larger than the circumstances into which we were born.
That journey was not necessarily easy. Migration can carry loneliness, sacrifice, racism, homesickness and the aching responsibility of building a life without the familiar structures that once held us.
But however difficult our journeys may have been, many of us have also been fortunate.
We have benefited from a country that, at its best, allowed us to arrive with our languages, food, faiths, histories and hopes. We have been able to build careers, purchase homes, educate our children, establish businesses and participate in civic life. We have been able to belong without completely erasing where we came from.
It is easy, once we have found security, to forget how precarious the pathway to it once was.
It is easy to hear rhetoric about migrants and refugees and imagine that it is directed at somebody else.
But the “other” being spoken about could have been us.
Had today’s hostility towards migration shaped Australia when our families were seeking a new beginning, some of us may never have been given the opportunity to build the lives we now take for granted.
Our story, too, is a migration story.
The life I might have lived
Full Circle Social Enterprises was seeded in my awareness that, had I been raised in India, my life as a girl may have looked very different.
I do not say this to diminish India or the lives of women who have chosen, or found joy within more traditional pathways. India is complex, abundant and fertile with possibility. It has held and nurtured generations of people whose lives are rich in love, community, culture and meaning.
For me, joy was found in freedom – to make my own choices, to pursue an education, earn my own income, question the stories I inherited, carve out my own destiny and emerge as the person I felt I had been created to become.
That freedom led me towards a life devoted to human rights and social justice. Eventually, it led me to create Full Circle.
I remember seeing poverty as a young girl. I could not understand why some people had so little while others had far more than they could ever need. Our servant washing dishes on our balcony and eating a single piece of bread dipped in tea seemed invisible to everyone else but me. She thought we were like her family, but in truth she was not more than a servant to us.
The explanations I was given when I asked why some people languish while others thrived would often embellish the truth rather than revealing it. I heard stories that normalised inequality. Perhaps this was simply God’s design, the suffering the result of karma. Perhaps some people were destined to carry a burden while others were destined to live comfortably beside them.
These explanations protected us from discomfort. They allowed us to continue making our choices without guilt, fear or a sense of responsibility.
If poverty was inevitable, we did not have to ask what systems sustained it. If suffering was preordained, we did not have to examine how we might be benefiting from it.
I no longer believe we can leave such stories unquestioned.
Lifting the veil
Full Circle is an invitation to the Indian diaspora to lean into the truth and lift the veil that can distort our shared humanity.
We work alongside a school community in Kolkata to expand the choices available to young people experiencing intergenerational poverty. Through leadership and life-skills education, career guidance, mentoring and teacher development, we help students build the confidence, knowledge and networks needed to shape their own futures.
Our work is not based on the belief that we must rescue anyone.
These young people possess intelligence, courage, creativity and potential. What they do not always possess is equitable access to the opportunities, information and relationships that allow potential to become possibility.
Intergenerational poverty is reinforced by systems that keep people undereducated, excluded and without power. When a family is consumed by the question of how it will eat tomorrow, imagining a future several years away can feel like nothing more than a daydream.
Without education and access to knowledge, the decisions that can lead towards greater security may never become visible. This is why our guiding principle is to build capacity, not dependence.
We do not want to become permanently embedded in the community we serve. Our ten-year vision is to support the development of a locally led and sustainable model that can continue without us.
All going well, Full Circle will no longer be needed. That is what success looks like to us.
We want to remove ego from this work because social impact should not be a pyramid of power, with the benefactor at the top and the beneficiary at the bottom. It should be a circle of hope.
A circle in which knowledge, skills, resources and opportunity move between people. A circle in which those closest to the challenges help design the responses. A circle that becomes stronger until it can sustain itself.
One girl can change a lineage
It can be tempting to believe that the problems are too large and that our individual contributions are too small. But consider what can happen when even one child is given a wider field of possibility.
One student who discovers a career they did not know existed may begin to imagine a different future.
One young person who learns to communicate, make decisions, set goals and advocate for themselves may carry those skills into their family and community.
One girl who decides to finish her education and earn her own income may transform not only her life, but the expectations surrounding every girl who follows in her lineage.
Change does not always arrive as a revolution.
Sometimes it begins quietly, when a child realises: My life does not have to be confined to the lives that have come before me.
What will we do with our privilege?
The Indian diaspora has an opportunity to create a legacy that will outlive us.
This is not only about money, although without funding we cannot deliver the work that needs to be done. We pay those on the ground who do the work and who tirelessly invest in their children every day. In the process, they too are encouraged to emerge from rigid frameworks of teaching to create space for curiosity, imagination and dreams.
Full Circle is largely powered by people who work pro bono. They contribute because they recognise that privilege is not something to feel ashamed of. It is something to become responsible for. We can use what we have learned to help somebody else move forward. We can open a door, share knowledge, make an introduction, mentor a young person, build a system, fund a program or tell a story that helps another person believe in what is possible.
For members of the Indian diaspora, there is a deeper invitation here.
Do you want to become part of a chain that reignites hope in a young person in the country that birthed you, held you and, in some way, gave you the wings to fly?
Do you want to help create a future in which young people are not defined by the economic circumstances or social hierarchies into which they were born?
Do you want your success to become part of somebody else’s beginning?
Come and complete the circle
On Sunday, 16 August 2026, Full Circle Social Enterprises will celebrate its fifth birthday at the Emerald Peacock in Melbourne’s CBD.
We invite you to come and hear about our work, the ethos that guides us and our ten-year strategy to make ourselves redundant.
We will share what we have learned, what we are building and how people can become involved through partnership, expertise, advocacy, volunteering or financial support.
There will be no hard sell and no follow-up calls designed to pressure you. Come as you are, with a curious mind and an open heart.
Listen to the stories. Meet the people behind the work. Ask questions. Consider what role, if any, you might wish to play.
Then leave on your own terms.
Hopefully, you will leave inspired to become part of the change you wish to see in this world. We have given ourselves ten years to leave it a little better for children whose futures might otherwise be constrained in the same ways as the generations before them.
Perhaps the question for each of us is not whether we can change everything.
Perhaps it is simply this: Perhaps our greatest legacy is not what we build for ourselves, but what we make possible for others.
Purchase tickets here: https://events.humanitix.com/full-circle-5th-birthday-gala
Visit our website here: www.fullcirclesocialenterprises.com.au
