From lawyer to Australia’s young journalist of the year

Mridula Amin is a Dhaka-born Australian journalist. She won the award of Australia’s young journalist of the year in 2021. Her writings and photography got featured in several world famous media including the cover of National Geographic magazine. She talked to Prothom Alo about her journey of becoming a journalist from a lawyer.

Nauru is a small Micronesian island-country in the Pacific Ocean. The name of this tiny country surfaced in the global media from time to time because of refugee issues. Mridula Amin, a Dhaka-born Australian youth, visited the country along with her friends in 2018. Still there are restrictions on journalists entering the country.

Despite being involved in journalism, Mridula entered the country merely as a tourist. Taking a risk, she started documenting the inhumane living standards of the refugees. She continued her activities day after day even under the threat of being detained. She also interviewed several refugees inviting them over to her hotel room. She secretly took photographs of the refugee camps as well.

Then she returned to Australia and wrote down the miserable tales of the refugees she discovered in Nauru, in collaboration with The New York Times-journalist Isabella Kwai. That investigative report of hers got published full page on 5 November of 2018. It then created a stir.

Mridula Amin, who comes from Bangladeshi descent, shared the story of Nauru while talking about the beginnings of her journalist life. Mridula has become a known name in the journalistic circles of Australia. Her receiving The Walkley Awards, a prestigious award for journalism in Australia, played a significant role in gaining this recognition. Mridula was honoured in three different categories of the award in 2021. One of those three was the ‘Walkley Young Australian Journalist of the Year Award’.

Mridula Amin completed her graduation in 2018. The lure of journalism had entered her head, way before than that. However, her family didn’t like the idea of her pursuing a career in journalism. So, Mridula started working as a lawyer at the Supreme Court of New South Wales state.

However, she continued part-time journalism as well. Her writings and photography kept appearing in various renowned media including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. That noted article from 2018, published in The New York Times encouraged her even further. At one point she realised, her fate is in fact in journalism.

She joined Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) News in 2019. She was a member of the New South Wales team and a reporter of the Western Sydney Bureau of the media. However, at present she is working as a fellow teacher at Google News Lab for Australia and New Zealand, taking a one-year holiday from journalism. Mridula said, “Our future is in fact digital medium. So, the uses of innovative digital tools would be taught at Google News Lab. I’ll be teaching that to the journalists of both countries.”

A teenage girl, embracing her mother in tight hug on a beach, eyes shut. A hint of absolute reliance and solace etched in her silhouette, the way, a newborn infant rests its head in its mother’s bosom.

This photograph made it to the cover of world-famous periodical, National Geographic’s Indonesian edition at the beginning of 2021. The artist behind that photo was Mridula Amin.

The persons captured in that photo, standing on the beach were 32-year-old mother Shajeda Bahadur Miya and her 16-years-old elder daughter Asma. They were Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. Shajeda along with her husband and children arrived in Australia after a three-month long intense voyage in 2013. Mridula’s writings portray the pathetic tales of the refugees including this family.

As members of a Bangladeshi expatriate family in Australia, Mridula’s parents wanted their daughter to become a physician or a lawyer. Mridula did walk on the path of her parents’ choice. But, after a while she lost interest in that subject. She desired to find herself through pen and camera. So, she got herself admitted into Sydney’s Macquarie University in 2014 to study Law and Media.

As a law student Mridula had studied about the criminal cases of the Rohingya people in 2016. While going through those cases she was intrigued by the life of the Rohingya community.

She visited Myanmar as part of her studies. Before that Mridula had also bought a camera with 5,000 dollars from her savings. Thus began Mridula’s life as a journalist, in a Rohingya camp.

There are some people in Sydney who lives inside covered vans turning them into homes. Mridula roamed with the residents of the caravan park for almost four months. Later she made a 45-minutes long documentary titled ‘The Hidden Park of Last Resort’ based on that experience. On 11 April, 2021, that documentary was broadcast on ABC News. Mridula was saying, “My job is to find out those relationships among humans that depict differences among the wealthy and the poor or stir deep-rooted issues like expatriation and identity crisis."

It is for this report that Mridula got those three awards including the award of young journalist of the year in 2021. However, this young journalist is not that excited about the awards. This became evident from her own words as she said, “Many congratulated me saying, ‘Wow! You are a Walkley awards winner’. But, for me receiving acknowledgement of my works is more important than receiving awards. Still, the awards have boosted my confidence even further.”

Aminul Haque, a marine engineer migrated to Australia in 1991. Though his home was in Khulna, his family lived in Dhaka. Mridula Amin was born to Aminul and Farhana Haque in Dhaka in 1993. Mridula along with her mother migrated to Australia a year after her birth. Mridula is the second among three sisters.

Mridula’s schooling started at Sydney’s Hornsby South Public School. She studied at Selective School of Gosford till the twelfth standard.

Although she spent all of her childhood in a foreign country, she got the chance to practice Bangla language at her home. She leaves her mark of being a proud speaker of Bangla language and a proud Bangladeshi in her stories and other works. Mridula gives her Bangladeshi origin and knowledge of Bangla language the most credit behind reaching at her current position.