AfriKaleidoscope: Storying Identity and Belonging
Description
Storying Identity and Belonging
What happens when a story you never chose becomes the one you carry? Storying Identity and Belonging is a 2-hour masterclass exploring how language, narrative, and culture shape identity — and how we reclaim the story on our own terms.
Presented in collaboration with African Youth Initiatives Centres and Tabvuma Mental Health, the session opens with a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony — an invitation into hospitality before a word is spoken. A guided wellbeing exercise grounds the room, before a facilitated dialogue moves through how narrative is built, how it operates as power, and how it lives in us.
The session closes with a collective exercise: participants split into small groups, each taking on a different piece of the conversation, before their reflections are woven back together — leaving the room with something built together, not just discussed.
This is a space that speaks to and from African and diaspora experience, and invites the wider UNSW community and general public into that conversation.
Lineup
Dr Sithembinkosi Dube
Dr Dube is an Education Focused Lecturer at UNSW whose expertise spans the structure and use of first, second and heritage languages. She explores how language, story and culture shape identity and belonging, drawing on both scholarly insight and her experience as a youth mentor in the Zimbabwean diaspora community. Dr Dube leads the masterclass, creating a warm, inclusive space for reflection and dialogue.
Bishop Laryea
Bishop is Co-Founder and Executive Director of AYI Centres, supporting African-heritage youth through cultural identity, education and community wellbeing. With 20 years' experience across Sydney, Melbourne, and Ghana, he regularly delivers cultural awareness workshops connecting young people with their heritage. Bishop opens the masterclass by leading a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, sharing this tradition of hospitality with the room.
Eddie Hypolite
Eddie's work sits at the intersection of education, resilience, identity and social justice, drawing on more than 25 years as an educational consultant and 18 years in pastoral leadership. His current doctoral research examines the experiences of belonging among African diaspora students in Australian secondary schools, with a focus on racial inclusion and identity formation. Eddie joins the masterclass's structured dialogue to explore how identity lives and is internalised.
Dr Tracy Tabvuma
Dr Tabvuma is a credentialed Mental Health Nurse and founder of Tabvuma Mental Health, a culturally responsive service delivering psychotherapy, education and community initiatives. Her work focuses on strengthening wellbeing, identity and psychological safety within racially and ethnically diverse communities. Dr Tabvuma leads the masterclass's grounding wellbeing exercise, drawing on culture and lived experience to foster connection.
Angelica Ojinnaka-Psillakis
Angelica is a public health and social researcher, storyteller and health equity advocate, drawing on more than a decade of community-led work in Western Sydney and her experience as the 2022 Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations. Her work centres the participation of young people and systemically neglected communities in the decisions that affect them. Angelica leads the masterclass's closing audience engagement exercise, bringing the room's reflections together.
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity
