Yarraville entrepreneur Lynda Ford has been named in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, receiving an OAM for service to Victoria’s multicultural community.
Ms Ford is also known for founding Squirrl (pronounced squirrel) pickpocket-proof travel underwear, before manufacturing face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Along with Squirrl and entrepreneurship work, Ms Ford has been an intercultural cities expert with the Council of Europe since 2016.
“My role is around, you’ve got a multicultural society, how do you make sure that those different cultures are coming together to learn from each other, to run businesses together, to become friends,” she said.
“It’s really much about social inclusion and social cohesion, so making sure that society over time doesn’t fragment.
“The best way to do that is to let different cultures come together for different reasons.
“It could be something as simple as a barbecue in the neighbourhood or it could be all the way through to federal government policies around making sure that organisations are including everybody.”
Ms Ford said she wanted to acknowledge her mother, Helen Ford, in receiving her award.
“She’s been a single parent since 1975,” she said.
“She made sure my sister and I were educated and had opportunities in life, and I think that foundation and that basis has really given me the ability to take opportunities as they come up but also to be able to the work, because I had a really good basis for acceptance of other people.”
