Deaf Australian of the Year

Elise Stewart

Founder of Deaf Hub Bendigo - reducing barriers and isolation amongst the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community members accessing support and information in the regional area. Including:

• Social events
• Workshops
• Visiting clients
• Creation of a space for Deaf people
• Providing employment to Deaf people

She works both in volunteer and paid capacity. She has a passion to raise awareness of Deaf youth, elder people and parents of deaf kids.

Also supported all of the submissions to DRC in the region (400 hours worth of videos).

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Deaf Youth of the Year

Sam Martin

Sam invested his passion about Deaf arts:

• Always looks for strategies to share his achievements with the Deaf community
• Throughout Australia and in New York, which showed how Deaf people could be involved in the creation of a movie from start to end
• Established PAH Stories, a theatre performance which allows Deaf queer people to share their stories

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Community Volunteer of the Year

Margaret van Leeuwen

• Volunteered for 45 years for the Ballarat Deaf Social Club Inc with different roles in the committee
• She became life member in 1999 for BDSC
• Margaret is a quiet, hardworking & devoted community minded person
• Margaret likes being involved with Deaf Community, and feels a real sense of belonging
• Always ready to help with many social activities, Starlight Balls and special events
• Always the first person to set up the hall for club’s activities, guest speakers and AGM meetings and the last person to leave the venue!
• She also works full time and loves bushwalking
• E R Noble award recipient 2001/2002