Erfan Daliri
Author | Educator | Consultant
Erfan Daliri is an author, educator, social change consultant, and race equity specialist with a long and diverse career in community development, settlement services, multicultural affairs, advocacy, and social change strategy.
His experience includes community engagement, communication for change, cultural awareness and anti-racism training, participatory community development, Indigenous rights advocacy, youth empowerment, and motivational speaking.
Erfan has a Masters Degree in Communication for Social Change, three published books, including “Raising Humanity”, and 20 years of experience working with communities and organisations across Australia to build a more just, equitable, cohesive, and connected society.
Erfan is one of Australia’s most highly sought-after social change speakers and consultants, regularly offering keynotes at various conferences on matters relating to social cohesion, multicultural affairs, climate communication, socio-economic justice, education, and anti-racism.
Erfan Daliri’s current roles include the CEO of Kind Enterprises, director of Newkind Social Justice Conference, board member of the Culturally Diverse Alliance of Tasmania, and Fellow of the Post Growth Institute.
The Long Version
Born in India to Iranian parents fleeing religious persecution in Iran as Baha’is, Erfan Daliri migrated to Australia with his parents in 1984. Erfan’s father, Dr Farvardin Daliri OAM, has greatly influenced the trajectory of his life both as a creative artist and a community development and social change champion.
In the first year after arrival Erfan’s father, Dr Farvardin Daliri take on the role of Manager of the Migrant Resource Centre of Devonport and immediately start one of Australia’s first Cultural Festivals back in 1984.
Later moving to Townsville, so Dr Daliri could continue his advocacy for First Nations justice whilst completing his PhD, Erfan started working in the settlement services sector as a youth engagement officer while still in high school. At the age of 17 Erfan embarked on a year of service volunteering work in Sydney, India and Fiji, where he began developing his cross-cultural communication capacities and laying the foundations of his “world-embracing vision” At 19 Erfan embarked on his first national motivational speaking tour covering 14 cities across Australia.
From 2002 to 2006, whilst studying Infomechatronic Engineering at QUT, Erfan continued working closely with Dr Daliri on the Townsville Cultural Festival (1995-2022), and on innumerable community development, youth engagement, settlement services and Indigenous advocacy projects throughout Queensland.
In 2008, Erfan took on the role of Managing Director of Tabarsi Community Consultancy while owning and operating a hosptialities business that employed PoC while they furthered their studies. The following year, he took on the position of Program Curator and Marketing & Communications Manager for the Townsville Cultural Fest.
As Managing Director of Tabarsi Community Consultancy, Erfan worked on diverse range of projects including; mental health research with survivors of trauma and torture, program coordination of Youth Agents of Change residential camps, cross-cultural communication training for NGO and public sector staff, and community-building initiative with newly arrived migrants and refugees, and empowerment and advocacy initiatives with First Nations communities in Far North Queensland.
In 2010 Erfan started his Master's in Communication for Social Change at the University of Queensland while also travelling to rural and remote parts of North Queensland, working with community groups on arts development, project management, negotiations with local government and resources companies, and youth engagement initiatives.
In 2011 Erfan accepted the role of Festival Director of the Townsville Cultural Festival, which was then seeing over 20,000 visitors across the 5-day event. His role included liaising with over 200 community and cultural organisations, performing arts groups, First Nations Traditional Owner groups, and public and private stakeholders, funders, and media organisations.
Erfan both grew the event and broke the mold which has been put on “Cultural Events” by refusing to acknowledge the imagined boundary between mainstream arts events and so-called “multicultural” events.
Over the course of the 7 years, he booked and programmed acts such as Regurgitator, Tash Sultana, Sticky Fingers, and Jessica Mauboy alongside a predominantly local talent list including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance groups and performing groups from African, European, Asian, Central and South American and Middle Eastern cultures.
Between 2012 to 2015, Erfan become well-regarded as a poet and spoken word performing artist, published his first book, and released an album. In a few short years, Erfan performed at the Woodford Folk Festival, the Parliament House of Australia, and Ronnie Scots Jazz Club London, and booked a 3-month 20-date performance tour of the UK.
In 2016 Erfan launched the Newkind movement as a mechanism for social change empowerment, and without funding or an auspicing body, he managed to successfully host the first Newkind Festival as a week long Zero-Waste, Plant-Based, Renewable Energy Only, Alcohol-Free conference for social change, which attracted hundreds of participants from across the globe. Attracting over a million page views in its first year, the Newkind brand is now a well-recognised name, and in 2021 it moved from the Marion Bay Falls Festival site to being hosted by RMIT University.
Newkind Conference is now one of Australia’s most highly regarded social justice conferences and is recognised as a leader in social change discourse, bringing together the themes of socio-economic, environmental, gender and racial justice through a systems thinking lens.
In 2018 Erfan founded the social change consulting firm Kind Enterprises as a way to empower organisations that seek to create positive social change. Kind Enterprises has launched online systems thinking for social change courses, provided professional development training and consulting for some of Australia’s largest companies, NGOs and government departments and contributed to eco-system empowerment through various on-going initiaves.
Erfan is now regarded as one of Australia’s leading anti-racism educators and speakers, providing consulting and training to clients such as the Department of Justice and Supreme Court of Tasmania, the Department of Education of NSW, Qantas, BHP, Herbert Smith Freehills, the Diversity Council of Australia and the Australian Human Rights Commission.
In other roles, Erfan has also been appointed as a refugee campaign advisor to Amnesty International Australia, a board member of the Culturally Diverse Alliance of Tasmania, Fellow of the Post Growth Institute, and a Research Advisory Group member of Beyond Inclusion.
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