Eddie Woo is electric. His passion for teaching mathematics crackles and fizzes so brightly, so infectiously, even the staunchly innumerate are left thinking maybe - just maybe - there is something in this numbers game after all.
It's hard to imagine now but Eddie, famous for making maths fun and for pioneering online learning through his youTube channel Wootube, was once terrified of attending school.
"As a primary school student I was what you'd classify as a school refuser. I spent days and days just burying my head in my bed. My mum would have to deal with me just not wanting to go to school because I didn't want to be beaten up again," he says.
Bullied because of his Asian heritage and studiousness, Eddie had few friends growing up in western Sydney in the 1980s and 90s. Consequently, he felt he didn't belong.
"There were very few people in the area where I grew up, in my primary school, who had a face like mine. It wasn't just that I was ethnically different. I fitted very nicely into the niche of bookish nerd who just gets harassed because he's a nerd."
The sense of belonging finally arrived in 2018, when he was named Australia's Local Hero in the 2018 Australian of the Year Awards.
On Australia Day, having been named Local Hero the night before, Eddie faced a whirlwind of media appearances, including a reception hosted by then NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian in Western Sydney.
He describes the moment he walked into the packed venue as surreal.
"As I looked into this room that was full of 400 people it just seemed so incredible that they were all looking at me. It felt so strange because as someone growing up, and many years into adulthood, I'd never really thought of myself as Australian. I couldn't have identified as anything else but it still didn't feel like a title I was worthy of."
As he stood in that room, the centre of attention of a multicultural crowd gathered to celebrate Australia, it dawned.
"I came to realise that, of course, this is who I've been all along. Being a recipient of this award kind of gave me permission to recognise that the person I am actually does have a really important place in Australian culture and I get to represent that for so many other people. It's an enormous privilege."
If the Local Hero award, now in its 20th year, was a watershed moment in cementing Eddie's identity as an Australian, it also provided a platform for him to take his passion for teaching and for mathematics to a wider audience.
As well as his teaching job, he works for the NSW Education Department, leading a team of teachers devoted to developing excellence in maths teaching across the state.
"I've spoken to tens of thousands of people face to face over the last five years. Those opportunities have come through this award and this platform to be able to say, 'Yes, I have something worth saying, not just representing me but representing the communities that I'm a part of'," he says.
Community is at the heart of the Local Hero award. Introduced in 2003, its intention is to recognise everyday Australians who drive positive change at a grassroots level. Very often, that seemingly small community effort blossoms into change at a national level.
Ben Kearney, 2005 Local Hero, is a perfect example.
In 2003, he ran the bakery at Coles Bay on Tasmania's east coast. Involved in a big community clean-up after a huge, informal New Year's eve gathering, he was appalled by the amount of plastic litter found in the dunes.
"When we were doing that clean-up I was looking around in the dune area near all the shops and saw there was actually a lot plastic waste that wasn't related to that particular event," he says.
"There were a lot of lightweight plastic shopping bags and things that had accumulated over the years. It became evident that this was a problem."
As president of the local tourism association, Ben was acutely aware of the need to maintain the pristine beauty of the Coles Bay township and surrounds. The gateway to the world renowned Freycinet National Park, the town relied almost exclusively on the visitor economy and those visitors were attracted by natural beauty.
"It just seemed to me to be common sense in that kind of environment to not have lightweight plastic shopping bags."
So Ben mustered the support of other local businesses and on Anzac Day 2003, with retailers selling reusable paper bags and calico bags as an alternative, Coles Bay was declared Australia's first plastic shopping bag free town.
Planet Ark founder John Dee said the Coles Bay initiative demonstrated to the rest of Australia that it could live without plastic bags.
But it was after the town's work featured on the national stage, when Ben was named Local Hero of the year in 2005, when that community initiative really began to gain traction and not just in Australia.
"After the Australia Day award we were contacted by lots of other towns, particularly in Australia but a few in New Zealand and the UK, that wanted to follow that Coles Bay model. Being able to work with those communities was a really rewarding experience."
The award also prompted a broader discussion about single use plastics which after all these years has delivered a result.
"We've seen the fruits of that with all states and territories having bans for at least lightweight plastic shopping bags," Ben says.
"I'm very proud of the work we did - I didn't do it alone. I had a sort of leadership role but it did take all of the community to take a leap of faith and get behind me in Coles Bay originally. It's a real testament to them. Evidence of the strength that's built around that is that all these years later they've been able to maintain that plastic shopping ban."
From little things, the Coles Bay initiative proves, big things do indeed grow.
Recognising the efforts of people at a community level - the unsung heroes - is crucial, Ben says.
"We do need to recognise success when it occurs like that in communities because it really inspires other people to have a go. There's incredible people out in Australia doing amazing things."
On January 25, at a ceremony in Canberra, the 2023 Local Hero will be named. Among the finalists are a volunteer ambulance officer, an advocate for responsible pet ownership, a medical scientist helping women from culturally and linguistically diverse groups and a social entrepreneur bringing people together to regenerate their own communities.
No matter who takes home the award, all of them are local heroes - as are the communities from which they come.
As Eddie Woo says: "Every person who receives a local hero award, and I'm obviously included, represents a community that's much larger than they are. Being able to celebrate that and value that is important and valuable.
"I feel delighted to be part of it."
Australia's Local Hero award recipients
- 2003 Brian Parry AFSM (NSW) - Bushfire fighter
- 2004 Donna Carson (NSW) - Survivor of domestic violence
- 2005 Ben Kearney (TAS) - Environmental campaigner
- 2006 Toni Hoffman AM (QLD) - Patient advocate
- 2007 Shanaka Fernando (VIC) - Social challenger
- 2008 Jonathon Welch AM (VIC) - Choral conductor
- 2009 Graeme Drew (WA) - Sea rescuer and educator
- 2010 Ronni Kahn AO (NSW) - Food rescuer
- 2011 Donald Ritchie OAM (NSW) (d: 2012) - Suicide prevention advocate
- 2012 Lynne Sawyers (NSW) - Foster mother
- 2013 Shane Phillips (NSW) - Indigenous leader
- 2014 Tim Conolan AM (VIC) - Children's charity founder
- 2015 Juliette Wright OAM (QLD) - Social entrepreneur
- 2016 Catherine Keenan (NSW) - Youth educator
- 2017 Vicki Jellie AM (VIC) - Community fundraising champion
- 2018 Eddie Woo (NSW) - Mathematics teacher
- 2019 Kate & Tick Everett (NT) - Advocates against bullying
- 2020 Bernie Shakeshaft (NSW) - Founder of BackTrack Youth Works Program
- 2021 Rosemary Kariuki (NSW) - Advocate for migrant and refugee women
- 2022 Shanna Whan (NSW) - Founder and CEO of Sober In The Country
ACM, the publisher of this masthead, is official media partner of the 2023 Australian of the Year Awards. Watch the awards on ABC from 7.30pm on January 25.
