The WOMAN who changed MY LIFE
Azeena Nuhumaan was 15 years old and wanted to turn her life around. It was September 2001 – within weeks of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. The day that changed America also changed Azeena forever. The teenage troublemaker began to get an inkling of the power that could be wrought both by evil and by kindness, and she knew in her heart which side she wanted to stand on.
The question was how to make that shift? And would her family and the staff and students at her local high school in Sydney’s west give her the benefit of the doubt while she turned her life around? Luckily the principal of that school, Dorothy Hoddinott, was an unusual woman. At Holroyd High, she had created a groundbreaking experiment that proved just how much could be achieved by kids from economically challenged and culturally diverse backgrounds when someone had their back. And it helped that Dorothy had been a bit of a tearaway teen herself.
Azeena knocked on Dorothy’s door and said, “I want to do the 40 Hour Famine, and I want to help with the school’s 9/11 fundraiser. There’s so much I want to do, but will anyone believe me? I have a past.”
“I’m not interested in your past,” said Dorothy. “I’m interested in your future.”
Right away, Azeena signed up to help with fundraising. She began supporting a child through World Vision and volunteered with
