Khao Do who is an aquaintance of mine, has done us (by us, I mean the Vietnamese community, as well as the wider asian community) proud by being named 2005’s Young Australian of the Year.

Khoa Do (pron. Qwa Doe), from Yagoona West (NSW) was honoured for his contribution to the film industry and wider community. At just 25, he is a film maker, writer, director and actor and uses his talents to help others. In 2001, Khoa was nominated for an AFI Award for his screen play for the short film Delivery Day. In 2002, Khoa was asked to teach film and video production to ‘at risk’ youth in the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta. He saw no better way to teach them how to make films than to go ahead and make one with them. The life experiences of his students became the foundation of the now internationally acclaimed film, The Finished People. Khoa came to Australia as a refugee on a fishing boat when he was 2.

I’ve met Khoa many times through projects and friends, but have never really said anything more to him then, “Hi, how are you doing”, I’m not about to go up to him like I’m his best friend, but I will congratulate him for the award and for lifting the profile of young Vietnamese professionals above the sterotypical doctors, lawyers and pharmacists. Well done mate. You might know his brother too, Anh Do, the comedian, he’s been on the Footy Show a few times and has a few comedy gigs and appearances all over the place.

The last and only time a person of Vietnamese origin won was Tan Le back in 1998. Other notables have been, Lleyton Hewitt ‘03, Ian Thorpe ‘00, Kieran Perkins ‘92 and Cathy Freeman ‘90. I’m glad to see they went for a non sporting/movie star this year for both Australian and Young Australian of the year. There’s more to life than sports and film, Its the average people doing meaningful things that should matter.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 26th, 2005 at 12:02 am and is filed under Happenings.