Embracing diversity this Refugee Week: Chanh Kien’s story

Having arrived in Australia as a refugee, MYOB’s Chanh Kien knows the value of sharing diverse perspectives in business.

The annual Refugee Week represents an opportunity for Australians to reflect on the issues affecting refugees, promoting harmony and togetherness.

It’s an important issue for our society as well as businesses. By the close of 2020, 82.4 million people were displaced from their homes, with 26.4 million of them becoming refugees. Of these, 42 percent were children.

Family matters: From Southeast Asia to Australia

It’s a story MYOB’s Emerging Talent Lead, Chanh Kien knows only too well.

Born in Trà Vinh, Vietnam, Chanh came into the world as a refugee – her family and most of the people they knew were of Cambodian heritage, having previously fled Cambodia to avoid communist oppression.

But her family’s journey had only just begun.

“When I was about nine months old, communists began targeting anyone who had served in the army and had fought against their regime – which included my grandfather,” recounts Chanh.

“My father decided he needed to take action in order to keep us safe, so we packed a small backpack and left Trà Vinh.”

Chanh’s family undertook a dangerous route, hitch-hiking back to Cambodia and across the Thai border to a refugee camp. All up, it took Chanh’s family a month to relocate from Vietnam to Thailand.

“I had an uncle and aunt already living in Australia at the time, so my parents made the decision to apply for visas there.

“I was 18 months old by the time our visas were approved and soon after we arrived in Melbourne, where we were put up in a hotel and my parents were treated to their first steak dinner.”

Life as a refugee in the 90s

Australians have always been divided on our attitudes towards refugees – and to immigrants more generally – and Chanh’s family experienced this first hand while settling into their new life in Melbourne.

Chanh’s father secured work as a cleaner in Box Hill and he would clock up 20 kilometres walking his daily commute.

“There were many times that Dad encountered open hostility in the street and regularly faced verbal threats and insults, as well as occasionally having rubbish thrown at him from passing cars – simply for being of Southeast Asian origin,” Chanh tells us.

“I recall a certain amount of bullying for similar reasons when I was younger, but over time my family has come to be embraced by our new home country and we’re all very proud to be Australian.”

Celebrating differences as a guiding principle

From such tumultuous beginnings, Chanh has worked hard to make the most of the opportunities her family’s move to Australia has presented her.

In 2019, Chanh even co-authored a children’s book, Confident Coco, which aims to promote positive emotional development and harnessing the power of confidence to achieve success in life – an idea that resonates strongly with her.

“There’s a line we wrote into the book that says, ‘I’ve got this!’ and since the book was published, I’ve had parents come up to me to explain how their kids repeat that line whenever they’re facing a new challenge.

“It’s so incredibly rewarding to know that I’ve turned my early experiences into a resource that’s being accepted by a new generation.”

It’s also this attitude that Chanh brings to her work as MYOB’s Emerging Talent Lead, where she gets to foster and work with specialists across the company.

“Coming from a refugee background, everything I do comes from a place of gratefulness, of resilience and of hard work.

“It’s these values that I hope to instil in all the people I work with as well.”

For MYOB, embracing diversity helps build new values and perspectives like Chanh’s into the organisation and ultimately deliver a more well-rounded product and service offering as a result.

Sally Elson, Head of People Experience at MYOB couldn’t agree more.

“At MYOB, we know that creating an inclusive workplace where team members feel they belong is key to our growth and success,” she says.

“When our workforce reflects those of our diverse customers, this flows through to better products that are built to suit Australian and New Zealand business owners.”