Social entrepreneur Hedayat Osyan wins Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition
23 April, 2024
Media releases
The prestigious award is now in its third year, recognising the outstanding achievements of refugees to Australian society
Hedayat Osyan, founder of a leading social enterprise that employs refugees in the construction industry, has won the 2024 Australia for UNHCR-SBS Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition.
Mr Osyan, a former refugee from Afghanistan, founded CommUnity Construction seven years ago to support refugees struggling to find work or facing exploitation in the construction industry because they don't speak English.
The annual Les Murray award is named after legendary SBS sports broadcaster Les Murray AM, himself a former refugee from Hungary, and recognises an outstanding former refugee who is raising awareness of the plight of forcibly displaced people.
The Les Murray Award is now in its third year and SBS is proud to sponsor this important award, said James Taylor, Managing Director of SBS.
I congratulate Hedayat Osyan for his many achievements and commitment to providing work for a vulnerable community that needed a trusted partner to help them build pathways for their careers and livelihoods.
The prestigious award is now in its third year, recognising the outstanding achievements of refugees to Australian society
CEO of Australia for UNHCR, Trudi Mitchell, said Mr Osyan was a standout candidate for this year's award. Hedayat identified a key need in the community and has since empowered dozens of refugees to become self-sufficient. The judges were impressed by his determination to make a difference in a very tangible way.
We help refugees thrive and become independent, Hedayat Osyan said. We want to prove refugees are resilient, hard workers and bring new skills to society if you give them an opportunity.
Winning the Les Murray Award was the most exciting and happy moment, Mr Osyan said. I really admire Les Murray's work in Australia. He made a huge contribution to Australian media and to other refugees. Being selected for the award is a huge achievement for me.
Mr Osyan is from the persecuted Hazara community in Afghanistan. In 2006, his father, a high school teacher, was arrested by the Taliban and disappeared. When the Taliban attacked the family's village in Ghazni in 2009, Hedayat's mother told him to flee. He was 17 when he said goodbye to her and his two younger siblings. The teenager eventually travelled by boat to Australia and was detained on Christmas Island for three months. In 2010, he received his residency and moved to Sydney where he studied English at Marsden High School in West Ryde, before completing years 11 and 12.
My father believed that we can change the world through education. I followed his advice. I went to Canberra to study politics and international relations, Mr Osyan said. Six years before, I'd been in a country that didn't give me a chance to go to high school, let alone university.
Since starting CommUnity Construction in 2017, Hedayat has trained 90 refugees from different countries, with 60 now employed in construction and four setting up their own companies.
In his spare time, Mr Osyan has also been helping a group of recently arrived orphans from Afghanistan to settle into school and life in Australia. He also secured a grant for another group of young refugees, so they had a place to play football and could access uniforms.
They have a sense of belonging, Mr Osyan said. This kind of work gives me lots of energy.
The Les Murray award was judged by Australia for UNHCR CEO Trudi Mitchell, UNHCR Regional Representative Adrian Edwards, SBS Editor of Australia Explained Roza Germian, and Australia for UNHCR Board Member Lynn Dang.
For a pdf copy of this media release, click here.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
15/06/2026
Detach from Direct-Attached: How Remote Editing with EVO Keeps Creative Teams Mo...
14/06/2026
Library captures 1960s R&B/pop drum sound
Following on from their recent wave of plug-in effects, Iconic Instruments have just launched an all-new virtual d...
14/06/2026
HBO Comedy Rooster Shot with URSA Cine 17K 65
Brie Clayton June 14, 2026
0 Comments
Large format brings viewers intimately close to characters.
Black...
13/06/2026
Latest expansion pack includes 252 presets
Devious Machines have recently introduced another expansion for their powerful multi-effects plug-in, Infiltrator...
13/06/2026
Create custom DAW/plug-in controllers using prompts
MetaGrid have recently introduced an all-new AI Builder function to their touchscreen-based control surf...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production, Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it has given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what o...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Simple Steps to Better Acoustics - Taming The Small Room
Most of us mix in spare rooms and small spaces, where the acoustics fight us at every turn. At Gear...
12/06/2026
Latest addition expands vintage-inspired effects palette
Meris' Ottobit pedal range draws its inspiration from vintage gaming consoles, and the latest a...
12/06/2026
Soundbox-based chamber strings series expanded
Sonora Cinematic have just announced the launch of the second instalment in their Soundbox-based chamber stri...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
How Aussie indie games and screen are levelling up with IP 11 June 2026
Ari Harrison, Pro Jank Footy
Head of Games Joey Egger and Ari Harrison of Umbrella sha...
12/06/2026
AgentPerf from Artificial Analysis, the industry's first agentic AI benchmark, gives developers, enterprises and infrastructure providers a clear way to com...
Social entrepreneur Hedayat Osyan wins Les Murray Award for Refugee Recognition 
