| Tan Le
1998 AwardCommunity ServiceTan arrived in Australia with her family at the age of four, as a refugee from Vietnam. Despite initial language difficulties, she maintained an outstanding academic record, graduating to University at the age of 16. Tan also found time to devote her considerable energies and talent to community service. At 15 she joined The Vietnamese Community of Footscray Association, which was established to provide training and find employment for Vietnamese Australians. Tan became President within three years and proceeded to implement a number of new training and employment initiatives, as well as a program providing counselling and refuge services for Vietnamese women. The Australian Vietnamese Services Resource Centre, as it is now known, is regarded as one of the most effective Vietnamese organisations in Australia. Tan also organised a number of major cultural events which helped promote multiculturalism in Melbourne's west, mobilised the community to support fund raising drives for charities and recorded tapes of Vietnamese newspapers for the Victorian Association for the Blind. Tan is also a regular contributor to The Vietnamese Weekly, with the aim of helping Vietnamese Australians in business. Awarded a KPMG scholarship in 1997, Tan completed her Commerce Law degree at Monash University at the end of 1998.
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