Desire to break gender bias for refugee women fuels clean-cooking enterprise

A woman with long dark hair and dark eyes smiles towards the camera. She is wearing white drop earrings and a red and white floral dress.

Dr Anh Tran has a very personal reason to try to make life better for women and children living in refugee settings around the world.

Her parents were among the hundreds of thousands of refugees who escaped South Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975.

Her father was persecuted for fighting with the South Vietnamese air force and took his young family, Dr Tran’s mother and older sister, and fled for their lives.

After braving dangerous seas in overcrowded and often unseaworthy boats, they found “sanctuary and hardship” in a refugee camp before arriving in Australia in 1981.

A vintage photo of a father and mother holding their two small children and smiling towards the camera.

Dr Anh Tran in her mother’s arms at Redcliffe in the 1980s.

Dr Anh Tran in her mother’s arms at Redcliffe in the 1980s.

“Dad loves to tell the story, much to my great embarrassment, that I was conceived in a refugee camp,” Dr Tran said.

“It was super challenging when they arrived in Australia, they had virtually nothing.

“My mum told me that St Vincent de Paul gave them two sets of clothing each and they went back and asked for another set so that they had something to wear while washing.”

The young couple settled at Redcliffe, on a picturesque peninsula north of Brisbane.

“A lovely group of church families sponsored us and welcomed us into Australia,” she said.

“We were one of five Vietnamese families that settled there – it was amazing they were just so generous and so supportive.

“As the daughter of refugees, I have a passion to emulate those generous families and improve living conditions for displaced people.”

Cooking equipment in an UNHCR IDP Camp in Haiti.

Cooking equipment in an UNHCR IDP Camp in Haiti. Image: Claudiad / Getty Images.

Cooking equipment in an UNHCR IDP Camp in Haiti. Image: Claudiad / Getty Images.

Dr Tran, who is a University of Queensland Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) and PhD graduate, has the research and professional connections to make it happen.

She volunteered in developing communities and refugee settings across the world and has recently co-founded FuturEcook, a social enterprise aiming to alleviate poverty and address gender inequality by providing access to electric cooking services in schools and displacement settings in developing countries.

Watch the interview with Dr Anh Tran, Founder of FuturEcook.

“In these communities, cooking is more than just eating, it is surviving,” Dr Tran said.

“The women in refugee camps cook in small, enclosed huts for hours at a time and because they cook with firewood, they’re exposed to black carbon and fine particulate matter, and this is really detrimental to their health.”

“And the children are the ones collecting firewood, so the time saved not doing that could see them studying or playing or just being kids.”

Dr Tran said that improved health and social outcomes are at the core of clean cooking.

"Electric cooking will improve health, education, and the environment," she said.

“It’s a win–win!”

She has big dreams for the start-up.

“We're looking at partnering with the World Food Programme, and they have 60,000 schools, across 60 countries all over the world, reaching about 17 million children, and they hope to expand to 70 million in the next few years,” she said.

“I am very fortunate to have the opportunity to give back and do more.”

Gender bias unfortunately is not a new notion for Dr Tran.

“It has been quite challenging professionally at times because I am atypical in most situations,” she said.

“I am generally the youngest, of an ethnic background and a female engineer.

“Whenever I go to conferences, I get asked by older delegates if I am a student.

“The perception that a young woman could only be a student is annoying, even though I am a senior lecturer at my university with lots of achievements – it’s almost as bad as being asked to get the coffee.

“I feel as though I constantly need to prove myself.”

Dr Tran suggested it will be a challenge to address the International Women’s Day (IWD) theme 'Break the Bias'.

“It will require a mixture of awareness, education, and just caring and understanding to realise that glass ceilings do exist, but then to cultivate the idea that people who are atypical do belong in these places, particularly in engineering.”

“The first step is to make room for incredible young women to stand in the room and be proud to be there.”

And her advice for others on International Women's Day battling bias? 

“Don't look around the room and think hey, I don’t belong here,” she said.

“You do belong because you have an authentic voice and your experiences make you very individual and who you are.

“So yes, stand strong and be yourself.”

Dr Tran’s FuturEcook project is one of 11 startups awarded with $10,000 in equity-free funding by UQ’s 2022 Ventures ilab Accelerator program.

UQ Media and Communications, communications@uq.edu.au, +61 (0)429 056 139.

A woman with long dark hair and dark eyes smiles towards the camera. She is wearing white drop earrings and a red and white floral dress.