About Us

As a response to the 2020 wave of Black Lives Matter protests occurring across the world, Niroshnee Ranjan (Niro), then Deputy Officer of the student representative group the BIPOC Department at the Australian National University (ANU), launched a campaign called 'Are You Racist ANU?'. Over the second semester, this campaign aimed to explore this question through panel discussions and workshops with academics and activists, and empower students to speak the truth of their experiences through articles and various creative mediums. At the conclusion of the campaign and semester, the answer was evident - yes, the ANU was a racist institution. Not willing to let the campaign end, Niro decided to lead its evolution from a campaign to a wider, collective mission.

In that summer of 2020-21, the twelve founding members came together to create the club - the Collective on Anti-Racism - COAR, pronounced "core", for short. COAR in 2021 was a community of students at the ANU who shared an interest in anti-racism and decolonisation. We were concerned about the lack of action taken by the ANU against racism and white supremacy embedded in our university structures. It was a response to the structural racism within our personal academic disciplines and how the University centred whiteness and Western epistemologies to perpetuate the never-ending coloniality of empire. COAR worked together to imagine an anti-racist learning hub at the ANU. We also aimed to empower BIPOC students to speak their truth in order to dismantle white supremacy within the university. COAR at ANU was centred on the premise that collective education lies at the heart of anti-racist liberation. After a year of collectivising in which we curated our Anti-Racist Syllabus, ran a workshop, launched our zine, created the COAR podcast, all while enduring the 2021 COVID-19 lockdown in Canberra, COAR began to discus the future of our Collective, and whether that future included remaining a university club at ANU.

In the summer of 2021-22 we launched COAR beyond the university as a Canberran community group. We changed gears, shifting our focus from forever fighting against an institution, to carving out our own anti-racist spaces irrespective of external structures. We could create BIPOC-centred anti-racist spaces amongst ourselves, for ourselves. Through this we could also connect with BIPOC people and groups across Canberra. COAR is now an anti-racist educational and community space that seeks to reckon with the reality of being on stolen land and how we can move forward towards racial justice.

The COARmittee

Ayah Sahib (She/Her)

Collective Manager

Ayah Sahib (she/her) is a Kiwi-born Iraqi Australian settler who grew up on the stolen lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples. Racism has indelibly shaped her life, from the interpersonal racism she experiences by being an Arab hijabi wearing Muslim in the West, to global structural racism that has rendered her family (and so many others) civilians of war. Graduating from the Australian National University in 2022 with a double degree in International Relations and Arts, majoring in Sociology and English, Ayah joined COAR as a founding member in her third year as a response to the structural racism embedded within her disciplines she was experiencing and trying to make sense of.

As the current Collective Manager, she envisions COAR to be a space where BIPOC people can learn and understand their own experiences of racism, as well as that of the multitude of BIPOC communities, through engaging in anti-racism. In creating COAR's anti-racist spaces, she also seeks it to be a place where joy in community can be found, where BIPOC people can be unabashedly, unapologetically, and wondrously themselves.

Ayah continues to be committed to solidarity building and ensuring COAR centres Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and is part of an anti-racist movement led by First Nations peoples.

Chips Jin (They/Them)

Engagement Officer

As a young, trans, disabled, Chinese/Kiwi Australian born settler, Chips grew up on the stolen lands of the Bindal and Wulgurukaba People. After unknowingly internalising a lot of casual Australian rural racism, Chips began the long journey to undo it all when they moved to the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people. Here, they finished their degrees in Business Administration and Psychology. Now, as a working artist on these unceded lands, Chips works a lot with marginalised groups, creating works to stimulate social change.

From 2021, Chips contributed mainly to the marketing and scope of COAR, uncovering ways to engage stakeholders and community members to our journey. This year is all about how to create meaningful and sustainable groups in our BIPOC community for those who wish to grow their anti-racist learnings.

For anyone who considers themself an Ally, they invite you to come and grow with COAR, knowing that you might not understand but thankful that you recognise the need to do more than just be ‘not-racist’.

Ting Zhang (She/Her)

Finance Officer

Ting (she/her) was born and raised in Malaysia, and has been settling on the stolen lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples for the past five years. Ting is the Finance Officer of COAR and aims to maintain the financial health of this amazing organisation! Coming from a multinational country, subtle or unconscious acts of racism lurk in the corners of the harmonious society Ting lived in. Safe spaces that facilitated such discussions were rare, which is why she is grateful for the safe space that is COAR.

Being a part of the Collective since 2022, Ting has learned a lot about topics of anti-racism and decolonisation, and she is continuously looking forward to more interactions and chances to educate herself on.

Annabelle Nshuti (She/Her)

Community Coordinator

Annabelle (she/her) was born on Ngunnawal and Ngambri land - a second-generation immigrant, with family hailing from Rwanda. However, it was an abrupt move to Mali, West Africa that profoundly shaped her identity as a Black African woman commanding space within restrictive fields and spaces. A recent graduate from a Bachelor of Science, her time at university led to her involvement in community building within various activist spaces.

Now as COAR’s Community Coordinator, she aims to centre people of colours’ experiences, primarily through social media and casual catch ups, because we’re people too: sometimes, we just need a space to vent, rant, cry and laugh together. Annabelle has delved right back into studying, doing Honours looking at the atmospheric chemistry of Venus, and she hopes to see you either virtually in the comments or at one of our many fantabulous events!

Mariam Albander Hani (She/Her)

Marketing Officer

Mariam is the marketing officer at COAR. As an Arab Australian woman, she has enjoyed engaging in discussion with other POC and learning about their experiences. Her studies in International Relations also helped her see a different perspective of the world, particularly around the inequities embedded in cultures. Outside of COAR, Mariam enjoys watching old movies and reading literature.