Social Work Spotlight - Episode 140: Celesty

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

In this episode I speak with Celesty, a registered social worker and music educator committed to intersectional practice. With experience across domestic violence, refugee support, and community development, she centres healing, autonomy, and relational care. As a queer, neurodivergent professional with South Indian heritage, Celesty draws from ancestral resilience, person-centred frameworks, and creative pedagogy to walk alongside those impacted by systemic violence. Her work is grounded in cultural humility, lived accountability, and the belief that everyone deserves dignity and not discipline.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:It’s Going to be OK podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/0pqULMk8JpPYwgNvRdQuQn?si=d17dc110a58845be&nd=1&dlsi=48bda940e1f046f6The Great Indian Kitchen film - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-55919305Gaycation TV series - https://www.vicetv.com/en_us/show/gaycationBangalore’s Human Library article - https://lbb.in/bangalore/human-library-bangalore/A Migrant’s Story at Randwick Council - https://www.randwick.nsw.gov.au/library/creative-hub/library-exhibitions/migrant-story-2014This episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oifPuHrd1QANUFS-phmfp88xy5XUgOdmbSUIUxi4S40/edit?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

I begin today by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eura Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I record this podcast, and pay my respects to their elders past and present. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people listening today. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have an intrinsic connection to this land and have cared for country for over 60,000 years, with their way of life having been devastated by colonisation. Hi and welcome to social work spotlight where I showcase different areas of the profession each episode.

I'm your host, Yasamine Lupus, and today's guest is Celeste, a registered social worker and music educator committed to intersectional practice. With experience across domestic violence, refugee support, and community development, she centers healing, autonomy, and relational care. As a queer neurodivergent professional with South Indian heritage, Celeste draws from ancestral resilience, person-centered frameworks and creative pedagogy to walk alongside those impacted by systemic violence. Her work is grounded in cultural humility, lived accountability and the belief that everyone deserves dignity and not discipline. Thank you, Celeste.

Thank you so much for taking the time and meeting with me today. I'm looking forward to having to chat with you about your experience in social work. Well, thank you so much for having this podcast. It was actually my first time doing a podcast, and that's how to do with social workers. something that's very new and also very excited to do this. Wonderful. Can you tell me firstly when you got started in social work, what drew you to the profession? So I came to Australia just before COVID in 2020 and during that time,

because it's a new country that I just came and for me to break out of that isolation and also there's a restriction policy as to how many times you can meet outside. I started volunteering and during volunteer work I used to pack up some food and go to different houses and keep it and that experience was so rewarding and knowing that I could try to be part of a community that likes to support each other was something that I was really passionate about and that's something that drew me into social work having that ancestral calling I would say and a deep sense of justice. Growing up, I, which I was really, witness systems fail, especially for the most vulnerable, not always through obvious violence,

but also through a lot of silence, erasure and shame. And I was always asking and questioning things about power, belonging and healing. And social work kind of gave me that language for what I've been sensing all along. So that's something that is quite healing and that's something where I would, both music and social work have something called the voice and something that we could empower ourselves through voices and the voice connected to each other. And that's something that drew me to social work. Wow.

Because voice can be not just what's actually said. It can be the feeling someone gets from something that you're putting out. How do you make sense of social work voice? Is it the impact that you have on people? Or is it the thing that you put out into the world in terms of your energy? So I would look at the voice as a creative form. So in music, it's an expression, an expression of sound. And in social work, it's not the impression that I'm holding on.

Like, here, I'm here to fix things. For me, the voice is something that is a place where people reclaim their space, a place where people reclaim their autonomy and identity. So sometimes I feel like structures and systems. They usually silence a lot of people's voice in terms of the stories they tell. And to come out of that and to be heard is what I use voice. is a form of activism. And in both sense of social work and music,

deep listening and active listening is kind of used, because that's how I feel that when we listen in whole space and tune into people's emotional rhythms, that's something that I've kind of felt was there was quite a link between music and social work there. And I do realize that everybody has their own rhythm and their own music and their own hearts that they want to fulfill. And something that kind of looked into is the cultural humility and honesty that I felt within the field of social work.

I did work in a humanitarian settlement program. And that was like the first point of contact as soon as they come to Australia. And knowing that they came into a lot of trauma and a lot of background that they wanted. And somebody to just listen to and be heard as the first point of contact was something quite rewarding. So that's where I type into both creative forms into that space. And music can be such an international language, right? So that would have been potentially a place where you could connect with people and try to find common ground through music.

And I think I do agree with that, like the common ground. And it's kind of like the common thread within the intersectional space. Each thread has its own layer to it. you can keep weaving into different identities and then form something very unique. I kind of dive into using that common ground and that common space, knowing that each and every person works differently at the same time, how to navigate different systems and systemic needs at the same time. It's something that I was quite geared towards.

No, it sounds perfect. And you can use it to build rapport with people, but also then hopefully to help other people. and their healing journeys by reclaiming their voice as you were saying. Yeah and sometimes there's this clinical terms like on a scale of 1 to 10 how would you rate yourself and then what I would usually use is on a scale of like put a small tap like in a small sound or a big sound how would you hit the drum to kind of like okay this is how I feel to kind of show that okay that sound kind of language.

Yeah. I love that. What brought you to Australia in the first place, if not to study? Because you came before you decided to study social work. Yeah, I wanted to study music. So I did my master's in music in UQ. And then just after graduating, I did a Master of Social Work in Griffith. So I looked into studying music abroad because in India, that was in the master's.

And I went to Australia because I got a slight salt scholarship along so I was like why not yeah and I went off to Australia wow by yourself did you know anyone here I had like very far relatives not really close to them but yeah mostly by myself try to come in in so brave and especially to have that all happen around the time of lockdown I feel like that would have been really isolating for you well it was initially because like it was already like I was a bit homesick and trying to make the best out of it because if I did go back to India, I probably wouldn't be able to come back to Australia at that time. So I thought of staying at least it gives me some kind of space in time to see what's happening.

And in one way it was a blessing because I was able to understand and reclaim my own power in that particular area because I had the choice and understanding of what I wanted to do. And that's something that I looked forward to every day. But I know often people are coming over as international students, they have to work to survive because you pay more for tuition, you don't get any healthcare, you don't get any concessions with transport. So not being able to work during that time probably just made it that much harder. You're right because I think at that time there was also many people who lost their jobs, especially in COVID. And I was at least lucky because I had student loans,

so I was able to get at least some money coming back. But in that particular sense, when I was trying to work, sometimes I did like online music classes, trying to somewhat save money from that end. So yeah, that's something I've tried to do. And I want to dive into social work a little bit more, but I keep coming back to this music idea because I think it's so interesting

and then we can talk about the integration into social work. but what did you do your masters on? Do you play a specific instrument? What was your background? So I played the piano. However, my master's were more into research, music research. And within the music research, I was looking into how tuning systems shaped how we practice.

So one such example is during Mozart's time, the piano is very different as like compared to how we have the modern piano. And the tuning systems over there, were quite lighter and more different. And some of the pieces that he played, if you played onto that instrument, it kind of suits into the tuning system as compared to what you played right now.

So in my research, I picked up one piece, looked into how performers used two different instruments, and I kind of compared how their practice techniques were different. And some of them, one of them is called historically informed practice, and historically, historically informed practices how best you can use the techniques that were there in that particular era to use it in this modern instrument with all of those complexities. So that was kind of like my research.

And I realized tuning systems, I thought it was just, okay, just tuning system there, but it actually has a lot more depth to practice and performance and to the listeners years. So that was kind of like what I've done there. And are you still teaching music or is it taken a different shape now? So right now I am teaching music, but I'm mostly teaching for little like three years to four years, like early childhood music education. And I kind of make it very neuroforming, looking at different sensory needs and to very different music that could either be very overwhelming for some or could be very underwhelming for some. kind of balance both needs in a group class and try to make it very fun for both the parents and the kids as well using this rainbow beautiful rainbow drawings and there's this rainbow

cloth where and you pull it up and the kids are inside and then you pull it down it's like a hide-and-seek and then we use music to know when to stop when to come down so that's what I've kind of used it there I think we used to call it parachute back in the Yeah, caroushoot. Yes, that's fun. Oh, that was so much fun. You must have so much patience, though, because it's not just a bunch of kids in a room, it's a bunch of kids with musical things and being encouraged to make noise, and it must just be chaos,

but it sounds like you really enjoy it. Well, the parents are also in the rooms, so that's quite helpful because, like, if there are some things that I need, the parents with their child, too, it's, okay, you know what, let's do this, and then kind of bringing hands so I'm not alone in that space. It's also like a community building. What I do is I create these musical affirmations. So some of them are like even in dissonance there's harmony. So every note you play even the challenging ones play a beautiful part in your growth and your beautiful song of rhythm and only you have your own rhythm. You don't need to copy someone else's rhythm. So some of them I try to make in that musical affirmation and also trying to fight towards

this kind of performative mindset and competitive mindset and made it more collaborator. Yeah. And how did you settle on groups? I feel like that can be sometimes more challenging than individual work. At first I found it extremely challenging because I was so used to having one-on-one sessions and one-on-one was I was able to make it, okay this is this. One-on-one feedback was easier because I was able to read the child's face easily and the parent, it was just one-and-go. But in the group, class when there's a lot, a lot of sensory needs a lot. What I try to build is like a helping hand. So I paired two kids together to put one instrument and then exchange the other instrument to the other child. And then as another group wherein some children like to share instruments and some children don't like to share.

So the ones that likes to share, I put them in one group and the ones that don't like to share give them their own instruments. So they play along. And I kind of look at it as, okay, even if they don't want to share, they have their own instruments to kind of reclaim their power into that space. So that is something. I've also given them the choice, like what instruments would you like to play, what instruments you don't like to play? And also in each session, I make them explore different instruments to try to get used to some, even if they like one instrument, this is mine. But also, hey, there's other instruments you like to play. And if their name is, for example, Marina, I put it into Marina,

I try to make that rhythmic sense into their names so that they, first of all, remember their names and also remember other children's names. So, yeah, that's something I've tried to build them. Yeah, nice. And do you still have time for volunteering? I have a little time. Sometimes every Wednesdays I used to go to giving food. and if I have time otherwise I usually don't have time but that's something that I'm still

constering if there's some time what other places that I can try to squeeze my time towards volunteering yeah so you're still doing it perhaps less structured than before yeah yeah and how was the process like for you going back and studying social work and what were your placements while you were there. So my first placement was in an age care and when I was in the age care, I also sometimes use music as reminiscence therapy. I kind of used to play a lot of Elvis music and it was very different from children because like... And then the second placement was in a multicultural community council go coast. Over there, we had like a lot of community development and a lot of networking and over there I've also felt that a culture is something very

unique and very personal to everybody even though people look at culture as a tick box like okay people are this this but I kind of looking it as a very integrated system so that's something that I've learned along the way and also person-centered practice is something that I'm constantly trying to look at instead of like a fixing mentality. I'm looking at a more witnessing mentality, trying to look at witnessing and growth is something that I've kind of leaned on to and walking alongside with people instead of in front of them or like pulling in like a savior mentality there. So yeah. Yeah. And did that placement experience inform what you then wanted to do in terms of the type of social work? So just after

After placement, I went into DV Connect, which is a crisis line, and it was a very different form of work experience because I didn't realize that in the DV space, there was a lot of transferable skills that I did. Like, for example, when I worked in the HK, I could understand elder abuse, and I worked in the multicultural sector. I understood how domestic violence looked very differently in multicultural spaces. And that's how I was able to transfer my skills into that setting. And it was a very difficult job at first because I just graduated and it is a crisis line. So for me to kind of understand and learn that particular setting was a bit challenging. It's also a bit abstract because you don't have someone physically in front of you that you can reach out and support in that sense.

You have to try to use your voice and create a sense of calm and assuredness, I guess, that yes, okay, I hear you, but here's what we can do to help. It must have been a little bit, very, very challenging. Yeah. And staying regulated in the system that constantly disregulate you and avoiding, I'm trying to avoid vicarious trauma while trying to take care of your own nervous system and pushing for cultural nuances in places that centers whiteness and Western ideas of healing is something that I found was most challenging.

And I also kind of didn't like when system reduces people to tick boxes and when care became compliance and trauma translates to bureaucracy. So in that setting, I find it rewarding when someone reclaims their power, makes a choice, makes a boundary, makes the moment of softness. They've been once punished for. So that's my take on social work so far. Yeah. Did you have much support in that role in terms of did you work in a room with other people that could you know if you've had a difficult conversation you can just kind of turn around or where you shift work how did you operate so initially it was a bit difficult but i had some support and some of the support for call call coaching where they would listen to your recording and then they would mentor you as to

how you could do it better and how you can use different language or change rhythm So that's something that I've learned to kind of look at myself as a growing area. And also external supervision really did help me. So I was able to look back into what I've done, what I could have done differently and use set strategies, creative out forms and things that could probably help me in that particular area. And also, they'll teach music. So that was kind of like filling up my cup. Like if it goes, if it runs dry, it kind of filled it up again.

that big rainbow parachute up and then coming back to her and just making sure you come out from underneath it yeah so yes i really enjoyed that so that was your balance yeah how long did you stay in that role and how did you know it was time to move on then i stayed at that role very short period of time around four months and then i kind of wanted my space i've focused more on to music teaching after that and then I moved on to do the refugee intake which is more of HSP case management role and then after that I'm again going back to music teaching so I kind of feel like I'm running around music teaching social work music teaching social work so it's a balance that I'm striving to create to come

together so right now I'm kind of looking for another job opportunity maybe perhaps in development where I can integrate my knowledge into music and social work together into this community space. So that's something kind of like I'm looking forward to. And I feel like each opportunity that you have, even if it's short term, gives you more confidence and more tools in your belt to be able to then take it to something else. I think there's a very long-seated and perhaps outdated mentality that you have to stay. in one job for a long time. Otherwise, you've somehow failed at it. But I think as I probably mature as a social worker, I start to think more and more, hang on a minute, longer is not better necessarily. If you're too comfortable, then you're not developing and you're not building as a

professional. So I think even if you have lots of small opportunities, you're taking something from that and transferring it into the next thing you do. Oh, I see, I didn't think of it that way, because I always thought if you stay in one place, you know a lot about that system and all about a place, which is there's a pros and cons to it. I think what you've mentioned from your experience that you've stayed in places that are a bit longer time that I kind of felt was pretty cool. I was wondering if you have any insights of like staying in a longer place and looking at it differently from my experience, but I've jumped into different places. Yeah, that's really interesting too, because I guess in,

over 20 years, I've had three roles and I'm still in that third role. And what I can say, looking back, is that you have the opportunity to be touched by so many other people in that setting and learn from so many other people, whether that's from your clients, from the other people that you work with, especially in health, you've got so many other members of a multi-discipline routine or you've got people that let's say you're dealing with different management styles or different cultures in a workplace across different periods of that organization's belonging or being so yeah I think that's a way of seeing over time how you can shift your own practice because and this is something I tell my students all the time as well is this is one way

of working at a specific point in time in an organization that has a particular focus or priority or value right now. So the type of social worker I am right now is not the type of social worker you are or want to be. And in 10 years time, that's probably going to change again anyway. I definitely think I'm a different social worker to five and 10 years ago. So there's definitely, from my perspective, benefit in staying in a role because you get to learn and see how something evolves. But I do also feel like in hindsight there were times when I could have probably made a move sooner than I did, but I stuck with it because I thought, you know, the grass is not necessarily greener or this is as good as it's going to get. You know, you start to doubt yourself and your

ability sometimes if the culture and the support is not great. You start to think I don't deserve better or I'm this is as good as it's going to get. So yeah, benefits, cons. I think, just soak it up, take as much experience as you can from not only the work that you're doing, but the people around you that are also doing that work. Because I learn things from so many different people around me that have a different perspective on things. And I think there's not one way, there's not one right way at least. And sometimes it's just taking your cue from the clients as well, similar to what you had

to do in the DV line is. And you had to do that. That was so difficult because you had no visual cues. You couldn't tell from, let's say you were working with someone on the phone who was from India or from an Asian country or from an African country and they didn't have an accent and you couldn't tell you've lost context. You lose, unless they're forthcoming with that information, you don't have that to go off as part of their why or how or what's happening for them. That is particularly true, especially with the First Nation community because some of the names are. you're eccentric and also the accent isn't pretty obvious like you mentioned so I wouldn't really know unless I've asked are you from the community so that's kind of

like a learning curve that I've developed over time and I love that you've done that community work with migrants refugees before we started recording I mentioned that I'd worked in that space for quite a while before going into health and just the connections you make with people and knowing who your people are in the community like council and centre link and housing and connecting with all those services is so valuable do you miss that sort of work or were you happy to move on well i'm actually trying to first what i'm trying to do is i'm going to before i go deep into the ocean i'm going to put my feet and like you know just see how the water is test the waters and then before i dive in deep so

it's not like i don't like the work it's like i'm looking at other opportunities which could probably be more aligned with my values. It's not like I'm hunting for which grass is green. I know my grass is greener. I'm looking to where I can pour the water. So that's something that I'm trying to do. I'm looking at different lenses and different opportunities and I'll see which one I like. It's like a buffet. I'm looking at I'm tasting different different cuisine and which one I like the best. I was like, okay, I'm going to go to that deeper. I love that.

The world is your oyster. Yes, food for thought. But yeah. Do you see a tie-in with social work and music therapy or music teaching? How do you feel they inform each other maybe theoretically or practically? I think for music therapy, I need to have a degree, certified degree, if I need to perform there. But I could, I'm thinking maybe I would go towards disability sector to work. because I can perhaps use music towards looking at how emotional regulation and because I'm also within the neurodivision scale.

So I could kind of understand how I also need certain sensory needs and other like struggle with a lot of tight deadlines. So I could use my lived experience and music knowledge towards that sector as well is something that I'm quite exploring myself. But I'm always open for how music could be. It's quite a unique feel because there's so many things you could do in social work with music. And that's also something that I'm experimenting with. I'm also trying to find my own rhythm into that space. Let the channels come and composing a different sounds. Also, my name is an instrument.

Celeste is actually a keyboard instrument by itself. That's fun. And then Celeste and Latin is also heavenly, so probably looking at social work as a sacred space and looking at music with my name as an instrument is something that I tie into both. So yeah. Would you have to work in private practice or do you know of organisations that you could tap into? Because it's a lot of work going straight into running your own business, I imagine. Perhaps I'm looking to gain more experiences,

before I run into private practice. And I was looking if I am going to private practice, perhaps looking at mental health and music, trying to combine the two. That's something I'm quite ambitious to, but life happens, so we don't know what some things happens to. It's that in. So maybe I could even travel different places,

maybe UNICEF and looking into those communities there. So that's something I'm quite ambitious to do. Yeah. In India, is there a similar field? Would there be similar work opportunities if you were to go back? Oh, so I think in India, it's a bit more flexible. So if we combine music and social work, the thing is that the music that I practice is like Western classical. It's not Indian classical. So the majority of what I've seen is they've practiced a lot of music. The music therapy is very different as compared to the music therapy. over here. So maybe I would try to look into a very different lens, maybe fusion music, something very different. I haven't explored that area of going back to India and trying to look into how

music and social work could be combined. But that seems like a future opportunity there. I would look into finding my rhythm there, finding my own roots there, finding my ancestral wisdom into that sector there. So yeah. And you mentioned earlier that supervision is a big factor and influence in what you're doing and what you hope to do. It's an investment in yourself. How did you find your own supervisor if it wasn't directly through your practice? So I had an external supervisor from DVConnect. They had an external supervisor and I really like the session there.

So I contacted the same supervisor because they do private practice. and then I fix an appointment. I went in and I still continue it. So every month, once in a month, we have like a mutual topic that we want to discuss. And then I somehow feel that I've used that in everyday practice, not just in supervision, but also embodied certain aspects and things that they've said. And that somehow has shaped my social work practice. I was able to realize that I may have certain.

gaps because I probably missed out on social cues that were there before and pointing out towards how I missed out and what I've missed out into that particular setting is not just a professional growth but a personal growth and an increase in like emotional resilience, emotional intelligence and trying to look at self-regulation that way as well. And does it take sort of a coaching form rather than there is an aspect of self-reflection there, but without quite as much practical to draw on, I wonder whether it's more looking to the future and building yourself up that way. I think it's looking in my past, looking at what I could have done better, and then going towards the future. Also, I would look into how I could integrate

practice into music, in like social work practice into music, like person-centered approach. Like, I would give usually students, okay, you sell, what do you think about this? How do you feel about this? and look into how I'm not directing them as a teacher. Now you need to do this, this, this, this, this. I'm like, okay, what would you like to do? So it's kind of like building that rappro as well as trying to give them the driver seat. Like you take me, I'll just see if there's a puncher,

I'll just fix that. So it's not like, okay, I'm going to direct you, you need to be here. So it's kind of like that's what I've ingrained and into Fluton Zeta music teaching is something that I've, whatever concepts I've learned also integrated there. well so yeah nice and of the work that you've done so far in social work what's been the most challenging thing for you do you think so the most challenging thing within the social work is how I kind of need to regulate when it's a lot of like for example crisis work or like a lot of clients or

other things for me to try to learn to regulate my emotions and did a lot of grounding work so some of the grounding techniques that I've done. I've actually gone to like a trauma-informed kickboxing course and in that trauma-informed kickboxing course they talked about pound and grounds. So pound is like, so what you would do is you do a physical exercise, so your heart beats up and then you start using those grounding techniques. So it's kind of like usually grounding techniques are most effective when it's okay when you're into that state. So now that I've kind of practiced that pound and ground, so when my heart beats up, too much that's when I start to use a lot of grounding techniques there to like practice then sometimes

the body remembers like what's the stress and how to ground so it automatically comes there at that point so over time i've kind of practiced that but that has kind of like been the most challenging part was to try to regulate when everything comes into like a lot of dysregulation and a lot of things at once so yeah yeah and it's really tough it's like a catch-22 because as caring professionals, we do care, and we wouldn't be good at what we did unless we did care and unless it did affect us on some level. So yeah, it's exactly what you said about how to harness that and try to recognize it and then do that regulation work and try to sort out that or find the strategies and the techniques before you get to the crisis point.

Yeah. And what have you enjoyed the most out of the work that you've been doing? What kind of kept you going. I think the most is like when clients reclaim their space and their autonomy, like for example, if they've struggled to find housing for a family of 10 and it's already a housing crisis and usually houses in Australia don't accommodate for members of 10. And when they've reclaimed their agency, if they found a place on their own, I've given certain tools and structures and I usually put it as a self-directive mode and then they found something that they've done and they looked into their achievements and reclaim their space, reclaim their voice, reclaim that combination. So usually I'll ask the community and sometimes some people have a lot more things that are hidden,

like houses that they know and within the community I was able to find some things. So they found a house where it was two places like it's a neighborhood like two and it's a five stories and five stories. So it's kind of like great ending there. So how they've found they're able to become confident on themselves and using a lot of strength-based practice there, trying to translate it into what they've done. And that's something it's quite rewarding to see.

That's really interesting from a quantitative, trying to measure an outcome perspective, because no, you didn't actually find them the housing, but perhaps those. interactions that you had and the support that you provided enabled them to feel empowered to do that for themselves. But that doesn't look great on paper, you know, it's not as specific, I did this thing. So yeah, from a funding body perspective, it's always really hard working in community like that. Yeah. But it's good as a long-term outcome because it kind of is like capacity building and

self-determination. So it's like if we've done something on our own, we feel like, oh wow, this is me who've done it in a different country on my own. So that has a different level of confidence I can see in that that kind of, okay, I've done this. Oh, if I can do this, I can do that too. And then start straight going on to getting their own, it's kind of like a ripple domino effect. Okay, I can do this and this and this.

So that's something that I've quite like, I really like watching and witnessing their growth rather than fixing who they are. Yes. So yeah. And do you. much social work media or resources or reading what do you do when you're not physically social working so sometimes I do listen to podcasts there's this podcast called you are going to be okay and that by itself I listen to it on the train and then every time the narrative is like you are

going to be okay I know this is going to be hard there's a lot of like okay this is how you feel I know but you're going to be okay rather than positive like, okay, be grateful, do this, do that. It's more like, okay, no, it's going to be hard. You're going to be okay. Deep breaths there and quite a meditative feel. What I also like watching is movies on social justice, such as The Great Indian Kitchen is something that I really like,

looking at food as coercive control and how they've dealt with the society and patriarchal norms that come with it. So looking to those aspects, something just to understand and probably self-reflect on different topics towards social justice, something that I kind of do. I know I'm going out of social work to do that, but something that I felt was a passionate and interest of mine. So yeah.

I've not heard of that, but now I really want to check it out. Is there anything else before we finish up, Celeste, that you wanted to mention about social work, what you do, just, anything in general that you wished I'd asked. Well, I kind of also look at it as an ancestral lining. So how my grandfather used to fight in the army, how my grandmom raised a kid and then fought against patriarchy. So some things that quite live within the lineage of how to fight resistance and how

to look into decolonization and integrating them into social work is something that I felt was quite sacred and ancestral. So that's something looking into my roots as to I was able to come so far over here not because of who I was, because who I was before me, and to honour them into that space and to also give back to the community is something that I've learned along the way. My understanding is that India has quite a rich history of social work, but it's not necessarily called that, right?

It's not recognized as such. So how would you sort of define that within maybe the contemporary Indian So for me, like in my mom's side of the family, there are a lot of, they go up in a very Catholic upbringing. So a lot of my mom's side of the family are nuns and priests. And what they do as social work is more giving back to the society. Good, they go to different communities. They pack up food. They do a lot of like psychoeducation within the communities to break in mental health stigma. And sometimes they get in the church donation. They pack up every Christmas and I think very small acts like that.

And when I went back to India, because I'm from the queer community, I went back and looked into how queer community in India over there is very different. And we have, it's not a funded body organizations, but it's more like there's this organization where they help queer and trans people. And I was able to volunteer for some time there

and look into how that was very different from that community in a, in Australia and I was able to kind of compare over there. Yeah. You just reminded me of a really wonderful TV series called Gaycation. Have you heard of that? Oh, okay, I'll send you the link. I might actually pop it in the show notes because it's actually really interesting.

So it was created by Elliot Page before they were Elliot and their friend and they went to a bunch of different countries in the world and did a bit of a deep dive into how queer culture and community either thrived or was suppressed in that area, really, really interesting. So, but there's an Indian episode, which I found incredibly interesting. So definitely check that out. Yes, I will. Because you might even recognize either parts of that or even places or things or people

and go, yeah, okay, that's even a deeper dive than I expected or that's really consistent with what you had noticed as well. So I've looked into it. It looks like it's the 2016 TV series. Yeah. For I'm not wrong. So just a take on that. I think 2019 is when India decriminalized

LGBTQI plus community. So then it's just like 2020 is when I came to Australia. So I wasn't able to get involved into that. And then after like five years, I came back and to see the growth, like after it became decriminalized with something. with something. Maybe it was very different from the show because of 2016. But now that after a lot has changed within that years, it kind of maybe is a different take. So thank you though for mentioning vacation. I will look into that. Thank you for that context. I have no idea that even just a few

years later it was decriminalized. But even five years after that, six years after that, I would suspect there's still very much stigma and hush-hush and cultural expectations and shaming and all the horrible things that come with that, I feel like there's a lot of work that would need to be done still just because you decriminalize something doesn't mean it's accepted. But there's also like changes for that though. But when I, before I came to Australia, I was not really involved in anything. And then I was really scared to get involved.

And then when I came back, at least there's some, like I haven't, for example, I haven't really seen much into queer books. but now that I went to there, something called us a feminist library, and then I saw a lot of books there. And then I also went to something called as the Human Library in Bangalore. So the human libraries where a group of people comes in, they write like self-reflective chids, put it over there, and then everybody takes a chit, and then everybody self-reflected.

So the concept is like just like a book. It's like a library, like full of book. But this is a book of stories, like everybody talking about the stories. that calls the human library. I love that. I thought you were going to say there were people standing there telling their stories, but similar to like at the army barracks, they have screens set up like holographs almost

with people who have pre-recorded their history of how their ancestral lines, maybe they were farmers or they were whatever and how the colonial processes changed who they were as a people or maybe they were weavers and they had a role to play in certain something. So that was kind of a human library in a sense of their storytelling and then being able to live on through their story in a way. And when I worked in the community,

I developed something called a migrant story. That's what it was called. So Randwick Council, I don't even know if you can find it. It might be local to the council now, but we got some funding from council and we were able to pair a migrant from all different backgrounds with a younger person within that community, and the migrant told their story to the younger person, the younger person wrote it down.

And then that was compiled into a book. So it was just this tiny little community project that had the effect of, firstly the older person being able to tell their story in their own words, but to have it then reflected back to them in someone else's words that didn't have that same background or the same experience. and how i mean it's almost like chinese whispers in a sense of how does that person understand and conceptualize what they've been told and put it in their own words but yeah that's why i loved community just there was some interesting stuff that you could do and you kind of have free reign

because you're given a pot of money to do a thing but apart from that as long as you do the thing you can go off and have fun creating partnerships so that sounds pretty cool So yeah, I'm not sure if a migrant stories still exist as a concept or I really hope it does because it's just such an easy thing to do. Really? That is such a cool concept and I hope I find that migrant story. I don't even know if I could find it now, but it was definitely Randwick Council. Wow.

Yeah. That's a cool. Celeste, this has been such a lovely chat. Thank you so, so much for meeting with me and sharing all about when you first said, ancestral calling and that deep sense of justice. I was like, oh, I really must, even if we don't go down that rabbit hole, I must bring it back to that. And you then elaborated on your family background of supporting people and then developing your own sort of way of providing music education in a neuroaffirming way and finding your own harmony through that musical affirmation.

And then what it's doing in terms of developing you as not just a music teacher or a music therapist but a social worker and hopefully being able to integrate some of that and figuring out what kind of social worker you want to be and recognizing that that will change over time and that's okay too it's all part of the journey well thank you so much for inviting me to the podcast and also talking about a lot of questions and interviewing the whole story yeah and being part of this is such an honor and privilege as well thank you again it's been my absolute pleasure thank you thank you Thanks for joining me this week. If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Celeste,

please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Blue Sky, or you can email SW Spotlight Podcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Please also let me know if there is a particular topic you'd like discussed, or if you or another person you know would like to be featured on the show. Next episode's guest is Carol, a dedicated, and trauma-informed therapeutic social worker

with a degree also in criminal and community justice. As the child of immigrant parents, Carol's upbringing instilled a deep understanding of the systemic barriers many individuals face, as well as the importance of empathy, empowerment, community care, and social justice. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast

so you're notified when this next episode is available. See you next time.