Sandeep Sarathy for Yarra

Meet Sandeep Sarathy for Yarra
Melba Ward

If you live in the area and have a vote, this is why you may consider voting for Sandeep Sarathy your Labor candidate for Yarra City Council’s Melba Ward

If you get elected what top three areas will by your priority?

My top three priorities for Yarra are:

  1. Environment,
  2. Education and
  3. Social Mobility.

 To elaborate further:

 Environment – Yarra City Council has done a great job in buying 100% renewable electricity for its operations. However, I believe we can do even better and I will push Council to encourage private residents and industry in Yarra to also buy 100% renewable energy through incentives.

Education – I currently tutor children in a nearby high school voluntarily, and have found that there are many students who are struggling to keep up. They often come from non English backgrounds, are refugees and have disturbed childhoods, or have not got parental support. As an immigrant myself, I know the value of education in improving my life, and would like all these children to also get a good education. As such, I will push to open after school Homework Clubs where children can have supervised extra help to catch them up.

Social mobility – this is the idea that everyone should reach their full potential and improve their standing in life. Practical methods to help this include the provision of affordable housing, mentoring programs to help people get jobs, and also to help existing small businesses thrive so that they too can provide more local jobs to residents.

Do you think your local council is appropriately representative of your community and its interests?

Personally, as a well educated working professional, I believe Council looks after me quite well. However, I do believe more can be done for those in society who are struggling, or under privileged. This is why I would like to give back to society.

What would you like to say to a potential voter to vote for you?

I am proud to be the endorsed candidate of the Labor party for the Melba Ward in Yarra City Council. In addition to my personal policy priorities highlighted in Q1, we have a whole range of well thought policies to make Yarra a fairer and more pleasant place to live. I would encourage potential voters to have a look at our policies on http://www.yarralabor.org and make a decision based on that.

Do you think migrant communities are appropriately looked after by the mainstream political parties in Victoria?

This is a difficult question because every migrant community faces different challenges.

Broadly speaking, the Indian community generally immigrates with good qualifications and good English skills. This assists us in fitting in to the mainstream quite well. There are however exceptions – in many cases students have been financially exploited by unscrupulous providers and employers, many young Indians face insecure jobs, and there is a domestic violence issue we need to deal with. All these cases can be helped by having greater Indian background representation in Government.

As Victorian of Indian/Asian descent what do you miss most about India / your country of origin here or what do you fondly remember?

I am of Indian origin, but actually lived in Kenya for the first 7 years of my life, before immigrating to Australia. This means that I don’t have too many memories before my life in Australia. I still visit India regularly as I have family there. I guess what I miss most is my extended family. It is such a pleasure to see them when I do visit!