About us

---

Founder and CEO, Nina Trad Azam is a bilingual, specialist Accredited Mental Health Social Worker (AMHSW) with diverse experience in the community development space in the Arabic community.  She holds a Bachelor of Social Work and a Master of Advanced Social Work Practice from Charles Sturt  University and is a fellow of the Australian Association of Social Workers. She has successfully managed a Family GP , (UOW) teaching and Medical Acupuncture Practice in the Illawarra since 1998 assisting the doctor twice win Family GP of the Year in 2009 and 2014.

She has contributed extensively to community development in her work with NGO's including ICNSW since the 1990’s  by securing and delivering a number of labour market grants for job skills programs. She has assisted  in the creation, accreditation and administration of a private school on two campuses from its infancy that is still operating in western Sydney.
Through her capacity as NSW Justice of the Peace since the age of 18, she has advocated on behalf of vulnerable  and older citizens with Housing, Police, Social Services, Education and Health systems.

Voluntary work;
- support and care for Australian war widows since her childhood and beyond.
- Raise  funds for Bosnian refugees and humanitarian aid 

- Raise funds for the local community Muslim Radio station

- Assisting medical aid in Pakistan; cataract surgery and counselling
- Grief and loss; psychosocial counselling of orphans in Lebanon
- Psychological and social supports to Syrian  refugees in Wollongong
- Executive founding secretary for Illawarra People for Peace; 2014-16
- Support & companion of CALD elders in the Illawarra
- Speaking to selective High school  students about international human rights & promoting non violence.
- Mentoring Social Work graduates and international students
- Advocacy, the provision of practical and  emotional support for UOW  international students

- Advisory board member to the Omar Mosque chairman representing Illawarra Muslim Women issues.
- Provision of Cross Cultural awareness training to 50 TAFE teachers and over 100  Centrelink staff in the Illawarra   

Conference Presentations:
Nina has presented at numerous conferences on DV and spirituality and on women's empowerment.  She has presented her innovative model of care: Self care for refugee trauma to self-actualize and her " Hope and resilience Cards" at several national and international conferences in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and provided radio and newspaper interviews promoting social cohesion. She has also trained 50 refugee mental health nurses in her innovative three pronged model of care.

In 2024, she presented  a research paper: " Palestinian refugees Redefine Resilience"  based on her project work with newly arrived refugees from Gaza at the Mission of Hope Conference at the University of Western Sydney Bankstown.

Nina has created and facilitated the first Peace; Coffee & Conversations; an interfaith event in the Illawarra aimed at promoting social cohesion and greater human understanding through demystifying Islamophobia.

As an accredited Mental Health Social Worker, she accepts referrals from:
- General Practitioners under Medicare (GPMHCP) 
- Department of Justice, (Victims Services) 

- NDIS providers, (psychosocial capacity building & counselling) 

- Psychiatrists
- Paediatricians
- Police, lawyers, Social Workers

- FACS case managers
- Specialists DV women’s health services
- Refuges Emergency crisis accommodation 

Board Memberships;

ABC Advisory Council 2015-2017

AASW NSW Branch Management member 2014-2016

AASW member, Accredited Mental Health Social Worker

Department of Justice; Approved T2 Victims of Crime Counsellor