Deborra-Lee Furness has been announced as the New South Wales Australian of the Year for her work championing adoption rights and advocating the arts around the world.
Deborra-Lee, 58, and her husband Hugh Jackman, 46, are parents to two adopted children Oscar Maximillian, 14, and nine-year-old Ava Eliot.
Together, she and Hugh have campaigned for the adoption rights of parents in Australia with current adoption rules making it notoriously difficult to adopt children.
Speaking to ABC’s 702 radio this morning from New York Deborra-Lee said it was “a nice surprise to wake up to”.
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At the heart of Deborra’s adoption campaign is the mission statement “Every child has a right to a family.”
Deborra and Hugh went through heartache after going through IVF, only for Deb to suffer multiple miscarriages. On turning to adoption as their best adoption for having children, they realised they were suddenly faced with great difficulties of navigating the convoluted bureaucracy and red-tape of Australian adoption laws. She found that Australia has the lowest adoption rate in the world, despite the countless children “stuck in the system” in foster homes.
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In response to this, Deborra launched National Adoption Awareness Week in 2008 to shine a light on the difficulties Australian families face when trying to adopt both here and overseas. She has been campaigning for the rights of families wishing to adopt ever since.
“For decades there was no talk around this, nothing was shifting, our kids in Australia were languishing in foster care,” Deborra told 702 radio.
“We’re talking about it now, I know Barnardos in Sydney are stepping up trying to have children that have been permanently removed from their families have the chance to be in a permanent family of adoption.”
Deborra-Lee and hubby Hugh walk their daughter to school in their adopted home of New York.
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“Any child that comes from adoption comes from a hard place.”
She is also a patron of the Lighthouse Foundation for displaced children and International Adoption Families for Queensland. In addition, she is an ambassador for World Vision and works with refugees throughout the world as part of her role on the Advisory Committee for Film Aid International.
As to her arts advocacy work, Deb and Hugh together founded the Jackman-Furness Foundation for the Performing Arts to help support the education of Arts students.
All in all, Deborra-Lee is quite the benevolent force to be reckoned with! We congratulate her on this much-deserved recognition.
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