My name is Leanne.

My paid job is being a music teacher at a local school, My volunteer job is teaching English as a TESOL teacher at my Church. I also spend a lot of my time doing life with refugees and asylum seekers which has been life changing and very rewarding.

 With every other spare moment I have free, I love to spend it with my wonderful family and friends.

I am the sort of person who doesn’t like to just talk the talk, but I want to walk the walk, and go places with a passion on my heart. That means sometimes I do things that seem a little crazy to other people. The call “to do” and “to act” is strong and clear, whether here in Brisbane or overseas.

In 2016 when I saw the refugee crisis in Europe on TV – refugees jumping on flimsy orange rafts and trying escape war or terrorism in their country – my heart went out to them. Europe, especially Greece, was struggling to care for them and I’d read that it was volunteers who provided the love and dignity these people needed.That set me thinking.. Not long after, through a number of loose connections, I was invited to come along to a meeting with some of the Operation Hope team members. I deeply admired their commitment to raising funds for refugees, through a trusted NGO in Greece, and when I heard they had actually been invited to Greece to help, I was definitely very keen to know more. That was the beginning of my involvement with Operation Hope. When the same NGO stopped off in Iraq to assess the needs of the camps for displaced people outside of Mosul, Operation Hope members quickly raised tens of thousands of dollars to help them, then travelled over to help distribute the money and do volunteer work for the month we were there.

Now I’m very much looking forward to going back to Iraq in 2 weeks and teaching English for a month in one of the many camps for displaced Yazidi people. We will no doubt make lots of new friendships and have a very special time.