David Vadiveloo

David Selvarajah Vadiveloo is an education reformer, cultural safety consultant and retired lawyer.

Vadiveloo received the 2005 Australian Human Rights Commission Award for Individual Community Achievement and was the youngest person to be Highly Commended for the Australian Human Rights Medal, recognising lifelong commitment and achievements in human rights. Vadiveloo is currently the Superintendent of Schools for the North Slope Borough School District. Vadiveloo was the Founder and Executive Director of the media and education agency Community Prophets. He led the cultural safety and culturally responsive practice reform in schools in Victoria's juvenile justice system and previously consulted to First Nations community and commercial organisations in Australia and North America, including the Mirarr Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation and the Iñupiat Education Department in Alaska. Vadiveloo's films have also been nominated for Australian Film Institute Awards in both the drama and documentary categories.

Vadiveloo is married to Iñupiat screen producer, education consultant and cultural broker Rachel Naŋinaaq Edwardson.

Early life and education Vadiveloo was born in Wagga Wagga, Australia, to a Tamil father and Anglo-Celtic mother. He holds a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia and a Graduate Diploma in Film and Television from the Victorian College of the Arts at University of Melbourne, Australia.

Awards Vadiveloo's work in human rights, media and culturally responsive education saw him awarded the 2005 Australian Human Rights Commission Award for Individual Community Achievement, specifically for his work with Indigenous and marginalised peoples. In 2005 he was also the youngest person to be Highly Commended for the Australian Human Rights Medal, recognising lifelong commitment and achievements in human rights. the 2005 Australian Interactive Media Industry Association Award for Best Interactive Learning and 2009 Australian Film Institute nominations in both Drama and Documentary.

Career

Legal and human rights career Vadiveloo began work as a solicitor and barrister in the Northern Territory of Australia in 1994. He worked on the successful Central Land Council native title application, Hayes v Northern Territory, brought by the Arrernte people of the Alice Springs region.

In 1996, Vadiveloo was a policy advisor to the Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner of the Australian Human Rights Commission. He facilitated national community consultations with Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities about the operation and effectiveness of the Australian Racial Discrimination Act. His consultations formed the basis of the 1996 State of the Nation Report.

Between 2001 and 2003 Vadiveloo worked alongside former Australian Human Rights Commissioner Chris Sidoti and Bill Barker, former Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's Human Rights and Indigenous Issues section as a trainer in the Australia-Indonesia Specialised Training Project II, facilitating human rights training programs with Indonesian NGO's, military and government employees in areas of race discrimination, torture and conflict resolution.

Since 2007, Vadiveloo and wife Rachel Naninaaq Edwardson have facilitated culturally responsive practice and media programs in partnership with Indigenous and marginalised youth in the Northern Territory, Queensland, Victoria, NSW and Alaska. Their program in Cape York became the subject of the 2-part ABC Television documentary Voices From the Cape.

In 2008 at the request of the Legal Aid Commission of NSW, Vadiveloo and Edwardson devised and facilitated the Burn project with marginalised youth from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds in inner-city Sydney. The six-month project was a crime prevention initiative that resulted in the production of the Australian Film Institute nominated Burn film.

In 2013, Vadiveloo was Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation. On behalf of the Corporation he drafted the landmark research agreement used for the Madjedbebe archaeological excavation which has changed the scientifically accepted date of modern human occupation in Australia.

In 2015 Vadiveloo and Edwardson devised and facilitated a culturally responsive education pilot program for youth in custody at the Parkville Youth Justice Facility in Melbourne, Australia. The program included a number of artists such as Archie Roach, Radical Son and Abdul Abdullah. and resulted in culturally responsive practice being explicitly incorporated into the pedagogy for schools in youth justice facilities in the State of Victoria.

Film career In 1998, after completing the Victorian College of the Arts Film and Television post-graduate degree, Vadiveloo returned to Alice Springs and established a media program at the Irrkerlantye Learning Centre, working with Aboriginal children from the Town Camps of Alice Springs and re-engaging them with schooling through media.

Vadiveloo's documentary Trespass (2002), about the Mirrar leader Yvonne Margarula and her battle to stop the Jabiluka mine site, won multiple awards

Vadiveloo founded the media and education agency Community Prophets in 2005. The company facilitated culturally responsive practice reform and produced and taught film and television in partnership with marginalised communities.

Filmography 2012 Project Chariot – Producer, Editor (Dir: Rachel Naŋinaaq Edwardson) 2012 Songline to Happiness – Producer (Dir: Danny Teece-Johnson) 2009 The Voice of our Spirit – Editor (Dir: Rachel Naŋinaaq Edwardson) 2008 Voices from the Cape – Writer, Director, co-Producer 2008 Burn – Writer, Director 2005 Us Mob – Writer, Director, co-Producer 2004 Beyond Sorry – Writer, Director, Producer 2002 Bush Bikes – Writer, Director, Producer 2002 Jabiru 0886: Trespass Writer, Director, co-Producer 2001 Tales from a suitcase series 2 - Writer, Director 2001 Trespass - Director, Producer