The Chancellor’s Award for Service to the Community was awarded to Diana Abdel-Rahman, a peace activist and advocate for human rights and multicultural issues who has campaigned tirelessly to bring these issues to light.
Ms Abdel-Rahman is President of the Australian Muslim Voice, Chair of the Canberra Multicultural Community Forum and member of the newly formed ACT Multicultural Advisory Board.
She played a key role in establishing multicultural radio in the ACT which now broadcasts in over 40 languages. This led her to run her own radio station for the Muslim community for one month every year. Australian Muslim Voice is dedicated to the arts and culture of Islam.
“Studying at the University of Canberra allowed me to have structure and allowed me to think ahead a little bit and gave me a foresight that I probably wouldn't have had before if I didn't have that degree behind me,” Ms Abdel-Rahman, who graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication in 1997, said.
“To be inquisitive, to think about things from a different perspective, to ask the questions, to be not formulated in one particular way, but to really think of the multiple ways you can approach something and I continue to do that today. To receive a Distinguished Alumni Award, for me, just really brings everything right back to where I started, and so it's an absolute honour.”
