JAIME LOPEZ and the scaled architect’s design of the future
stand-alone ACI Central.
OUR COVER
Results
were
Jim's
reward
RETIREE ‘WORKS’ FOR MERE
SATISFACTION
04
MARCH 2018 | AK NewsMagazine, Vol 8 No 6
EVEN as a volunteer, Jaime ‘Jimmy’
Lopez has set ambitious targets and come
up with the goods. And to him, results have
been his reward.
Jimmy’s latest success story is the
first fully-owned Filipino community
centre in Sydney’s southwestern city of
Campbelltown.
When he and close associates
formed community club NARRA (National
Affiliation of Respectable and Responsible
Associations) as a cooperative four years
ago, he promised to work towards giving the
Filipino community a hub of its own – not in
25 years, but sooner rather than later.
Indeed, NARRA’s promise became
fact last year, when it purchased a two-
suite property at 9 Warby Street close to
Campbelltown railway station.
A partner in the hub project was Filipino
Plaza Inc, which shared NARRA’s vision of a
need to build a community-owned Filipino
centre to promote Filipino arts and culture.
The hub is now known as the Philippine-
Australian Arts, Culture and Innovation
Centre – ACI Central in short.
An accountant by profession, Lopez
had headed an initiative to formulate a plan
to finance the purchase through community
contributions and fundraisers.
“It’s a humble beginning, but the
community now has a hub it can call its
own,” Jimmy says.
At present, the fully airconditioned ACI
Central comprises a small arts gallery that
also serves as a little theaterette for visual
performances and room for meetings and
small celebrations.
There is a separate room, also
airconditioned, that serves as office space
with computers.
“That’s what we refer to as Central 1,”
he says. “The adjacent suite is Central 2,
which for now is leased out to help pay the
mortgage.”
But NARRA’s vision under Lopez goes
beyond the Darby Street hub.
“Next stop is the construction of ACI
Central’s stand-alone building on land
of its own,” Lopez says as he points to an
architect’s scaled miniature blueprint of the
future Centre.
For his volunteering over the years,
Lopez received a citation under the
Premier’s Volunteer Recognition Program
“for his contribution to the community and
the future of NSW”.
In November last year, Common Equity
on behalf of the NSW Cooperative Housing
Sector presented Lopez with an ‘Innovation
Award’ in recognition of his contribution in
“developing community leaders capable of
carrying the spirit of cohesion, cooperation
and innovative ideas”.
He was a recipient of a Volunteers
Award from the NSW Community
Relations Commission and an Outstanding
Community Award from the Filipino
Communities Council of Australia.
An innovator a heart, Lopez has also
been recognised as one who has introduced
and implemented partnerships with various
Filipino-Australian non-profit organisations.
Sedgwick Housing Cooperative Ltd
(SHCL) headed by Lopez was nominated
as “an exceptional community partnership
project in a local government area at the
2017 Zest Awards.
Lopez is a member of CPA Australia,
holds a doctorate of Philosophy in
Education, a masters in Business
Administration, a Master of Arts in Teaching,
and a Bachelor of Science in Commerce.
In the Philippines, he was president of
the Philippine Institute of Certified Public
Accounts’ Baguio chapter, and a lecturer
in the faculties of accounting, and food
sanitation.
So why does the man continue doing
volunteer work as this late stage of his life?
“I am a migrant, and I have experienced
the hardship that comes with arriving as an
adult starting a new life in a new country,”
Lopez says.
“I want to do my little bit to make some
migrants’ living standards a bit better and
their struggles a little bit easier to cope
with.”
“I think I have some more to give to the
community.” n
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