(From The Age, March 5th, Obituaries)
A life of caring, sharing, giving and educating
Danielle McDermott
March 5, 2008
VONNIE Brown, an educator, linguist, teacher of Indonesian and English as a second language, and a companion and friend to the people living in the Kimberley, Indonesia and East Timor, has died after slipping and hitting her head on a reef in Darwin. She was 55.
Born in Melbourne and raised in Armadale and South Yarra, she was the daughter of Davis Cup player and 1946 Wimbledon singles' runner-up Geoff Brown and his wife, Veronica (nee Lineham), who was an Australian junior tennis champion.
Vonnie enjoyed a privileged education at Loreto Mandeville Hall in Toorak, and from a very young age she felt passionately that every person had the right to be educated. For her, education was a way out of poverty, and her dedication to educate the disadvantaged dominated her life from the early 1970s in the Kimberley as a lay missionary through to last year, working for Australian Volunteers International in East Timor.
Vonnie entered the order of the Sisters of St John of God, who were pioneers in the Kimberley in the '70s. She became well known across the Kimberley region and in particular in Derby, Balgo and Bidjadanga.
She immersed herself in the languages and culture of the people, and after seven years left the religious order and moved to Adelaide to study. She then moved to the Pilbara, where she taught for one year before moving back to the Kimberley and to Balgo.
Vonnie developed the language programs of four schools and three distinct desert languages. Through her sensitivity to language she attracted and encouraged many indigenous artists and writers to the Literacy Production Centre to produce teaching resources in Kukatja, Walmatjarri and Jaru.
Vonnie then began studying Indonesian and travelled to Kupang during holiday periods for intensive study blocks. She moved to Darwin in 1993, where she further studied the Indonesian language and culture at what is now Charles Darwin University.
She was also involved in fund-raising that helped build a library and classrooms on the Indonesian island of Flores.
It was at this time that Vonnie married, and she and her husband, Damien, sponsored many newly arrived refugee families from Serbia, Croatia and Ethiopia. After they went their separate ways in 2001, Vonnie joined Australian Volunteers International, and headed to Lolotoe, East Timor, where she dedicated seven years of her life to the people, and lived in abject poverty.
A friend, mentor, English teacher and builder of libraries, schools and dreams, each year she returned to Australia to talk at schools, churches and Rotary clubs to raise funds to support a range of projects, especially the East Timor Education Fund, which she co-founded with Dr Peter Azzopardi.
The fund has provided education opportunities for children and adults.
Vonnie was always the life of any party — the first up dancing or singing and encouraging everyone else to join in. Her love of music was illustrated when she was at Bidjadanga in the '70s; she would make 700 kilometre round-trips to Derby for violin lessons.
She also loved fishing, camping, gardening and Chinese food, especially chicken and sweet corn soup.
Vonnie's tragic death has robbed the world of a person who gave all of herself throughout her life, but her passion and vision will continue to give many people hope and a better future. There is now a memorial scholarship in her name to educate a child to complete senior high school at a boarding school.
Vonnie is survived by her mother, Veronica, her sisters, Virginia Vaughan and Danielle McDermott, and her brother, Geoff Brown.
Updated March 2008 |
