Plating It Forward


credit: USACE on Flickr

When Shaun Christie-David was growing up in Sydney, Australia, his Sri Lankan mother's famous dhal sandwichmade with lentils, tempered mustard seeds, spices, and fried onionswas teased for being "Shit man, your lunch stinks," he tells Australian Story.

"To throw away a piece of my mum's love and to throw away things that my dad worked hard for [because of] being ashamed of my identity," says Christie-David, who was born in Australia but grew up in Sri Lanka, free from war and full of opportunities.

He tried to find his place in the lucrative world of finance, but the money didn't make him happy.

He went to Sri Lanka, free from war and full of opportunities, made him feel guilty, and it got him angry.

"It ate away at me," he says.

"It made me feel uncomfortable all the time.

It hurt."

He escaped to London, where he worked with some Indigenous organizations, and came home and worked alongside some Indigenous organizations, creeping a little closer to the mission he sought.

"I needed to find a purpose," he says, "and I needed to build something that was meaningful.

It turned out, what he was looking for was in

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