Nominated by MISSives Guest Editor, Amani Haydar
Yusra wears many Hijabs – most recently running as a candidate in my local government election. She is a lawyer with a background in policy and thought leadership and has worked across government, non-government, and community settings. She puts her feminism into practice in a range of professional and community settings.
Yusra currently works as a Solicitor at a state-wide Aboriginal Women’s Legal Centre with victim-survivors of domestic violence and is also a Senior Policy and Projects Officer at Western Sydney Community Forum.
With the goal of improving water safety skills and confidence for women from culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Western Sydney, Yusra founded the not-for-profit grassroots initiative, Swim Sisters Australia. Yusra was awarded 2020 Canterbury-Bankstown Sports Woman of the Year for her role in founding the Swim Sisters initiative which has helped participants improve their water safety skills and confidence while advocating for women’s swimming opportunities and facilities.
Yusra’s writing on politics, current affairs and motherhood has been featured in a number of publications including SBS Voices and The Sydney Morning Herald. She has also written about her swimming journey and the Swim Sisters project in The Women’s Pool edited by Lynne Spender and The Memory Pool: Australian stories of summer, sun and swimming edited by Therese Spruhan.
Yusra is passionate about addressing health system inequality facing South Western Sydney. She sits on a number of local committees devoted to the health and wellbeing of communities in Western Sydney including the Bankstown Hospital Consumer and Community Committee, South Western Sydney LHD Mental Health Consumer and Community committee and the Ethnic Community Services Cooperative.
