Include a Charity Week: Lunch with human rights advocate and volunteer Lyma Nguyen

Born in Indonesia to Vietnamese refugee parents, Lyma grew up in a largely Vietnamese refugee suburb of Brisbane. There, a deep connection to her culture and community helped shape a desire for proactive change. As an AVI volunteer, then AVI board member and now, having committed to leaving a gift to AVI in her will, Lyma is ensuring her efforts continue long into the future.

I was privileged to meet Lyma in Darwin recently and sharing her story this Include a Charity week is an honour. This is only a small insight into who Lyma is and the incredible work she has done and continues to do. Lyma found her path at University, realising that to bring about true change in the world, she needed more than Philosophy. So, Lyma switched to Law, an area she felt she could have the most impact.

During her studies, Lyma was President of Amnesty International’s University of Queensland Chapter and began her early career working with victims of the Khmer Rouge Regime in Cambodia. Initially, she was part of a team that conducted outreach to victims of the regime who had survived mass atrocities from the regime’s genocidal policies of the 1970s. This involved ensuring survivors in Cambodia’s regional areas as well as the Cambodian diaspora were properly informed that they could participate in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal’s legal processes as witnesses or Civil Parties. This began almost 15 years of pro bono work, with the Tribunal only coming to an end in 2022.

With Vietnamese as a first language, Lyma was able to develop a strong connection with the ethnic Vietnamese minority community in Cambodia. There, she came to represent members of the group who were the subject of genocide charges against the regime’s Senior Leaders. Members of this ethnic minority community had been living on the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia for generations, yet had no legal rights as they were not recognised as citizens of the country they called home.

During the Khmer Rouge regime they were forcibly deported to Vietnam where they lived as refugees. Years later, once the regime had collapsed, they returned to their home country, to Cambodia, however the discrimination continued. They still couldn’t open bank accounts or enroll their children in school, and they struggled to gain employment.

Lyma’s representation of this community as a skilled volunteer was conducted in her own time, and meant regular trips between Australia and Cambodia, until AVI was able to offer her an opportunity to live in Cambodia and continue her work supported by the Lawyers Without Borders program, managed by AVI. Being in country meant she was not only close to her host organisation, Legal Aid of Cambodia (LAC), but was also able to support LAC’s other important work, in particular, anti-human trafficking projects.

Lyma’s assignment with AVI was just one chapter in her story, but it was an important one. A few years later, Lyma joined AVI’s board – contributing her knowledge and experience to the organisation’s strategic directions while seeing first-hand the global scope and importance of AVI’s work.

Today Lyma continues to believe in and support the deep impact that skilled volunteering provides communities and the volunteers themselves. By committing to leave AVI a gift in her will, Lyma hopes to see AVI continue to achieve sustainable change through skilled volunteering – growing its presence among Australians.